Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/568

550 Hoary frost o'erspreads the dell,

Giazing firm each crystal rill;

They mind me o' thy fickle sel',

My fair yet faithless Mary, O.

I lanely tread each trackless way,

Whare wi' thee, Mary, I did stray,

My heart's oppress'd wi' grief and wae,

Thou'rt false, and a' looks drearie, O.

The snaw-clad hills o'ertap the cluds,

The hares rin tim'rous through the wuds,

The trees, forsaken by their buds,

Are emblems o' my Mary, O.

A' around deserted looks,

Tangles fringe the barren rocks.

While bairnies by the ingle nooks,

Tell tales that mak' them eerie, O.

Storms may rage, and tempests roar,

Restless billows beat the shore,

Joy on earth I'll find no more.

Unless I'm blest wi' Mary, O.

[ is not properly a Scottish song, though admitted into all our Scottish collections, but rather an English imitation, both in words and music, of the Scottish lyrical muse. The tune was composed by Dr. Maurice Greene, and published in Robart's "Caliope or English Harmony" in 1739, and afterwards adopted by Oswald in his Pocket Companion, (1742.) The song is said to have been written by Dr., son of Bishop Hoadley, and, considering that it is the production of an Englishman, its use of the Scottish language is pretty accurately sustained, though here and there, we think, the Doric ear will detect something false in its construction—Something which betrays its bastard origin—and proves it to be "not the true Mackie" or "real Simon Pure."]

[ by, Edinburgh, on the death of a young gentleman who was lost on the coast of Ireland in January, 1816.—Tune, "Flowers of the Forest."

as May morning, the heath hills adorning,

Decking with pearl the green flowery lea;

Sweet sing the thrushes among the hawthorn bushes,

But sweeter by far was my Jamie to me.

Dirk, dark and drearie, the moment was eerie,

When the grim tyrant, by fatal decree,

Snatch'd aff my treasure, my whole care and pleasure,

Wha now sleeps in death 'neath the dark rolling sea.

Lanely I wander whare burnies meander,

Blythely the birds sing on ilka green tree;

Nature looks cheerie — but waes me, I'm weary,

Joy fled wi' him wha sleeps cauld in the sea.