Ancient ballads and songs; with notices, including original poetry. By T. Lyle

THE TOKEN FLOWER.

241

In Johnson's "Musical Museum," we find the fragment of a repulsive legendary Ballad, with a similar burthen to that of the foregoing. There is also a traditional Ballad upon record, of which we regret our inability to procure more than the commencing stanza:

Ae king's dochter said to anither,

Broom blooms bonnie, an' grows sae fair,

We'll gae ride like sister and brither,

But we'll never gae down to the broom nae mair.

Again, Sir Walter Scott causes his Effie Deans, in the "Heart of Mid-Lothian," to sing a stanza of a similar choral Ballad :

The elfin knight sat on the brae,

The broom grows bonnie, the broom grows fair,
And by there cam' lilting a lady so gay,

And we darna' gang down to the broom nae mair.

THE TOKEN FLOWER.

Air.-"PRETTY PEG OF DERBY."

How bonnie is the glen in the greenwood shaw,
Where the wild roses bloom, and the breezes blaw
Through the

sunny summer dells,

Where the woodland music swells

O'er the lily, and the bonnie blue Forget-me-not.

O tell me a flower in the garden or wild,

So modest, and so peerless, as summer's fair child;
Not a brighter floweret blows,

Even the blush celestial-rose,

Must yield to the bonnie blue Forget-me-not.

By the cress-cover'd fountain where its sparkling waters run, Thy azure star with golden breast is smiling to the sun, While the violets that bloom

Round the fane at Beauty's tomb,

Are gemm'd with the bonnie blue Forget-me-not.

Dearest emblem of Friendship, thou beauty of the grove! Thy pale blue eye, like my Laura's, beams with love; And when Laura courts the shade,

Whisper softly to the maid,

That thy name, lovely flower! is Forget-me-not.

Marsh Scorpion grass, the Myosotis Palustris of botanists, is a wild flower possessing uncommon beauty. This Token Flower, the Forget-me-not, is the acknowledged emblem of Friendship throughout every country of civilized Europe. Five species of this beautiful genus of plants are natives of Scotland.