Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/510

492

[ by C. M.. Music composed by John Sinclair.]

's ne'er a nook in a' the land

Victoria rules sae well,

There's naething half sae canty, grand,

As blythe Dumbarton's dell;

And would you speer the reason why,

The truth I'll fairly tell,

A winsome lassie lives hard by

Dumbarton's bonnie dell.

Up by yon glen, Loch Lomond laves,

Where bold M'Gregors dwell;

And bogies dance o'er heroes' graves,

There lives Dumbarton's belle;

She's blest with ev'ry charm in life,

And this I know full well—

I'll ne'er be happy till my wife

Is blythe Dumbarton's belle.

[.]

" ye wad gang, lassie, to Garryhorn,

Ye might be happy, I ween;

Albeit the cuckoo was never heard there,

And a swallow there never was seen.

While cushats coo round the mill of Glenlee,

And little birds sing on the thorn;

Ye might hear the bonnie heather-bleat croak

In the wilds of Garryhorn.

'Tis bonnie to see at the Garryhorn

Kids skipping the highest rock,

And, wrapt in his plaid at midsummer day,

The moorman tending his flock.

The reaper seldom his sickle whets there,

To gather in standing corn;

But many a sheep is to shear and smear

In the bughts of Garryhorn.

There are hams on the banks at Garryhorn

Of braxy, and eke a store

Of cakes in the kist, and peats in the neuk,

To put aye the winter o'er.

There is aye a clog for the fire at Yule,

With a browst for New-year's morn;

And gin ye gang up ye may sit like a queen

In the chamber at Garryhorn.

And when ye are lady of Garryhorn,

Ye shall ride to the kirk with me;

Although my mither should skelp through the mire,

With her coats kilted up to the knee.

I woo not for siller, my bonnie May,

Sae dinna my offer scorn;

'No! but ye maun speer at my minny,' quo' she,

Ere I gang to Garryhorn.

[.—Tune, "Tweedside."]

frequent on Tweed and on Tay,

Their harps all the muses have strung;

Should a river, more limpid than they,

The wood-fringed Esk, flow unsung?

While Kitty and Chloe inspire

The poet with pastoral strains,

Why silent the voice of the lyre

On Mary, the pride of the plains?

Oh! nature's most beautiful works

Are often unseen and unknown;

And often in solitude lurks

A form that should shine on a throne;

In the wilderness blossoms the rose

In beauty, retir'd from the sight;

And Philomel warbles her woes

Alone to the ear of the night.

How often the beauty is hid

Amid shades that her triumphs deny

How often the hero forbid

From the path that conducts to the sky!

A Helen has pin'd in the grove,

A Homer has wanted his name,

Unseen in the circle of love,

Unknown in the temple of fame.