Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/564

546 They sought it up, they sought it down,

They sought it late and early,

And found it in the bonnie balm-tree,

That shines on the bowling-green o' Airly.

He has ta'en her by the left shoulder,

And oh! but she grat sairly,

And led her down'to yon green bank

Till he plundered the bonnie house o' Airly.

"O! its I ha'e seven braw'sons," she says,

"And the youngest ne'er saw his daddie,

And although I had as mony mae,

I wad gi'e them a' to Charlie.

"But gin my good lord had been at hame,

As this night he is wi' Charlie,

There durst na a Campbell in a' the west

Ha'e plunder'd the bonnie house o' Airly."

[ by in 1787, in compliment to the daughter of his friend William Cruikshank, one of the masters of the High School, Edinburgh. Miss Cruikshank was the "very young lady" to whom the poet addressed the lines, beginning,

"Beauteous rose-bud, young and gay."

She was afterwards married to a Mr. Henderson in Jedburgh. The tune to the present song was composed by "Davie, a brither poet," that is, David Siller, who died at Irvine in 1830. It is called "The Rose-bud."]

by my early walk,

Adown a corn-enclosed hawk,

Sae gently bent its thorny stalk,

All on a dewy morning.

Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled,

In a' its crimson glory spread

And drooping rich the dewy head,

It scents the early morning.

Within the bush, her covert nest

A little linnet fondly prest,

The dew sat chilly on her breast

Sae early in the morning.

She soon shall see her tender brood,

The pride, the pleasure o' the wood,

Amang the fresh green leaves bedew'd,

Awake the early morning.

So thou, dear bird, young Jeanny fair!

On trembling string, or vocal air,

Shall sweetly pay the tender care

That tends thy early morning.

So thou, sweet rose-bud, young and gay,

Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day,

And bless the parent's evening ray

That watch'd thy early morning.

[.]

, though we ne'er again should meet

By summer bower, or sunny sea;

This brain shall burn, this bosom beat,

For ever, and alone, for thee!

For who would bid oblivion roll,

Athwart the sunshine of those hours,

In which we mingled soul with soul,

As the winds mix congenial flowers.

Then, though the hand of distance flings

Long shadows 'twixt thy hearth and mine,

He cannot clip the lightning wings,

Which bear my spirit back-to thine!

Though seas their waves between us cast,

And though the star of hope has set,

Yet there's a soul within the past,

A glory I can ne'er forget!

[ fragment Cromek found in Burns's handwriting and published it in the Reliques, as a production of the poet's. Gilbert Burns, however, says, that the verses were popular in Ayrshire long before his brother was born.]

I was a wand'ring ae morning in spring,

I heard a merry ploughman sae sweetly to sing;

And as he was singin' thae words he did say,

There's nae life like the ploughman in the month o' sweet May.—

The lav'rock in the morning she'll rise frae her nest,

And mount to the air wi' the dew on her breast;

And wi' the merry ploughman she'll whistle and sing;

And at night she'll return to her nest back again.