Wha straught began to blaw the coal, She took her by the hair o' the head, She's made her a weel paid dochter. Now fare thee weel, my bonnie lass, Tho' thou has a gay, an' a weel-far't face, The "Wakerife mammy," is here noted down with some trifling corrections, from the west country set of the Ballad, where its day of popularity amongst the peasantry, was equal, at least, with that of the foregoing one. Burns says that he picked up a version of it from a country girl's singing in Nithsdale, and that he never either met with the song or the air to which it is sung elsewhere in Scotland. We marvel not a little at this, after considering how very common the Ballad has been over the shires of Ayr and Renfrew, both before and since the Poet's day; so common, indeed, is it still, that we have had some demurings about inserting it here at all. The air is a very pretty one, with two lines of a nonsensical chorus, sung after each stanza, which certainly merits other verses to be adapted for it, when like many other wanderers of the day, it then might again be received into favour. Burns's copy, in Johnston's Museum, differs a good deal from the foregoing one, besides wanting the commencing stanza. Cunningham's set of words in the second volume of his "Songs of Scotland," is equally faulty. THE DESPONDING MAIDEN. 157 THE DESPONDING MAIDEN. As Jockie was trudging the meadows along, He happen'd to meet a young girl by the way, He asked the maiden what made her so sad, Come dry up your tears, and no longer do mourn, Since your swain's o'er the plain with another fair maid, The foregoing pastoral, although apparently of English extraction, is one of a numerous class of compositions, now almost extinct, in a perfect state, from the Western Shires of Scotland; these acknowledge sweet plaintive airs of their own, but now are gliding fast down into oblivion's vale, along with the chants themselves. All the fragments of olden Song, we at present recollect any thing about (and these are not a few), along with entire pieces, which have been borne down to us by tradition, are accompanied by some characteristic air or other, peculiar to themselves, which might still be redeemed from perishing, were the snatches of song taken down, and committed to paper, as they fall from the lips of our native-taught peasantry. These reminiscences assimilate upon the mind with each other, till called up unconsciously again, when P a note of the one or a line of the other breaks in upon the fancy, thereby embodying the whole anew into a Song, long unheeded, perhaps, and half forgotten there; a bar or two is chanted; we strain our fancy anew, to recollect the words, and soon arouse it from this state of pristine dormancy, by gathering together all the dismembered links of the chain, into a continuous whole. It is difficult at times, to define the minute workings of the mind upon paper, even upon such a trifling subject as the one we have just now been tiring our readers with. BEAUTY ASLEEP. As I went out on an evening clear, So beautiful and fair: Had you seen the lass, you would have sworn The Queen of Love was there. The spring-flowers bent their gentle stems, Where zephyr bade the primrose-breath, Diffuse where she was laid; The small birds sang, their mates replied, May the draps in life's cup, aye be as sweet BONNIE BEDS OF ROSES. 159 There are twelve months into the year, Are the months of June and May. Young women carry the keys of love, Men's hearts are still on fire. The first and concluding stanzas of the foregoing, are here revived from an old traditional Ballad, while the intermediate verse is original. The piece acknowledges a very pretty and character istic air of its own, not yet, we presume, noted down. This Ballad is another of that peculiar class of compositions, which still lingeringly retain their hold amongst the peasantry in the West of Scotland, a literal version of which cannot now be "conveyed to a cleanly mind, by any language, translation, or periphrasis whatever," and whose plot ought rather to have come under the surveillance of the judge than of the poet. It is singular to find such a number of our old traditional chants striking into the same vein of perversion and gross indelicacy, without the slightest assignable reason or necessity, while our own romantic and pastoral country presented so many darling themes for the chaste and sportive muse, to cull her flower, from the sweets scattered in such profusion around her fairy footsteps. BONNIE BEDS OF ROSES. As I was a walking one morning in May, The small birds were singing delightfully and gay, Where I with my true love did often sport and play, My pretty brown girl, come sit on my knee, For there's none in the world I can fancy but thee; So my pretty brown girl do not leave me. My daddy and mammy they often used to say, If ever I will marry, I will marry in the spring, As I was a walking one morning in the spring, The foregoing has been collated with two several copies, the one a stall, and the other, a traditional one. It belongs to that class of simple pastoral chants, which have been preserved from perishing, chiefly on account of their accompanying airs, that of the present being among the sweetest of our old traditional melodies. BESSY BELL AN' MARY GRAY. O Bessy Bell an' Mary Gray, |