Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/456

438 Oh! what to us is wealth or rank?

Or what is pomp or power?

More dear this velvet mossy bank,

This blest ecstatic hour:

I'd covet not the monarch's throne,

Nor diamond-studded queen,

While blest wi' thee, and thee alone,

Sweet Bet of Aberdeen.

winds which kiss the groves' green tops,

And sweep the mountain hour,

O, softly stir the ocean waves

Which sleep along the shore,

For my love sails the fairest ship

That wantons on the sea:

O, bend his masts with pleasant gales,

And waft him hame to me.

O leave nae mair the bonnie glen,

Clear stream, and hawthorn prove,

Where first we walked in gloaming grey,

And sigh'd and look'd of love;

For faithless is the ocean wave,

And faithless is the wind—

Then leave nae mair my h»art to break,

'Mang Scotland's hills behind.

[.—Tune, "The Butcher Boy." Learmont published a volume of Poems at Edinburgh in 1791. He at one time held the situation of head gardener to the Duke of Buccleuch at Langholm Lodge. He died many years ago.]

mighty nature's handy-works,

The common or uncommon,

There's nought through a' her limits wide

Can be compared to woman.

The farmer toils, the merchant trokes,

From dawing to the gloamin';

The farmer's pains, the merchant's cares,

Are a' to please thee, woman.

The sailor spreads the daring sail

Through billows chafed and foaming,

For gems, and gold, and jewels rare,

To please thee, lovely woman.

The soldier fights o'er crimson'd fields,

In distant climates roaming;

But lays, wi' pride, his laurels down,

Before thee, conquering woman.

The monarch leaves his golden throne,

With other men in common,

And lays aside his crown', and kneels

A subject to thee, woman.

Though all were mine, e'er man possess'd

Barbarian, Greek, or Roman,

What would earth be, frae east to west,

Without my goddess, woman!

[ two verses," says Mr. Robert Chambers, "which are in a style wonderfully tender and chaste for their age, were written by a Mr. of Finland, upon Anne, one of the four daughters of Sir Robert Laurie, first baronet of Maxwelton, by his second wife, who was a daughter of Riddell of Minto. As Sir Robert was created a baronet in the year 1685, it is probable that the verses were composed about the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is painful to record, that, notwithstanding the ardent and chivalrous affection displayed by Mr. Douglas in his poem, he did not obtain the heroine for a wife: she was married to Mr. Ferguson of Craigdarroch."]

banks are bonnie,

Where early fa's the dew;

Where me and Annie Laurie

Made up the promise true;

Made up the promise true,

And never forget will I;

And for bonnie Annie Laurie

I'll lay me doun and die.

She's backit like the peacock,

She's breistit like the swan,

She's jimp about the middle,

Her waist ye weel micht span;