Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/536

518 O cease, my dear charmer, else soon I'll betray

A weakness unmanly, and quickly give way

To fondness, which may prove a ruin to thee,

A pain to us baith, and dishonour to me.

Bear witness, ye streams, and witness, ye flowers,

Hear witness, ye watchful invisible powers,

If ever my heart be unfaithful to thee,

May naething propitious e'er smile upon me.

[" Blaitherie o't," or, as it is otherwise called, "The Baigrie o't," is the name of a fine old Scottish song and tune, the authorship or exact age of either of which, however, cannot be ascertained. Kelly, in his Scots Proverbs, says, Shame fall the gear and the blad'ry o't,' is the turn of an old Scottish song, spoken when a young handsome girl marries an old man, upon the account of his wealth." Kelly's work was published in 1721, so that in that day the song, in some shape or other, must have existed, yet we cannot find it in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany. There are extant two versions of "The Blaithrie o't" very much alike, and as they are neither of them long, we shall give both. The first seems to be the expression of a country maiden, whose lover, getting rich, deserts her for another with money—and there is something inexpressibly affecting in the manner in which the poor girl tells her story, her proud spirit disdaining to acknowledge to be in the least "daunton'd" by the cruel desertion. The second version seems to be rather a convivial or "deil-me-care" song. It appears in Yair's Charmer (1749,) and also in Herd's and other collections.]

I think on this warld's pelf,

And the little wee share I ha'e o't to myself,

And how the lass that wants it is by the lads forgot,

May the shame fa' the gear and the blaithrie o't!

Jockie was the laddie that held the pleugh,

But now he's got gowd and gear enough;

He thinks nae mair o' me that wears the plaiden coat:—

May the shame fa' the gear and the blaithrie o't!

Jennie was the lassie that mucked the byre,

But now she is clad in her silken attire;

And Jockie says he lo'es her, and swears he's nie forgot;—

May the shame fa' the gear and the blaithrie o't!

But all this shall never daunton me,

Sae lang as I keep my fancy free;

For the lad that's sae inconstant he is not worth a groat:—

May the shame fa' the gear and the blaithrie o't!

When I think on this warld's pelf,

And how little o't I ha'e to myself,

I sich and look down on my thread-bare coat;

Yet the shame tak' the gear and the baigrie o't!

Johnnie was the lad that held the pleuch,

But now he has gowd and gear eneuch;

I mind weil the day when he was na worth a groat—

And the shame fa' the gear and the baigrie o't!

Jenny was the lassie that muckit the byre,

But now she goes in her silken attire;

And she was a lass wha wore a plaiden coat—

O, the shame fa' the gear and the baigrie o't!

Yet a' this shall never daunton me,

Sae lang as I keep my fancy free;

While I've but a penny to pay the t'other pot,

May the shame fa' the gear and the baigrie o't!

[" following is a set of this song," says Burns, "which was the earliest song I remember to have got by heart. When a child, an old woman sung it to me, and I picked it up, every word, at first hearing."—From "the affairs of the kirk and the queen" being mentioned in the last verse, the song probably belongs to the reign of queen Anne.

, weel I mind, I lent you my hand

To sing you a song which you did me command;

But my memory's so bad, I had almost forgot

That you called it the gear and the blaithrie o't.—