Play me up, "Sweet Marie," I cry'd, But the fiddler play'd aye struntum strum, And down his bow he threw. "Here's thy kind health, i' the ruddie red wine, Fair dame o' the stranger land! For never a pair o' e'en before Could mar my good bow-hand." Her lips were a cloven hinney-cherrie, Her locks owre alabaster brows, Fell like the morning light; And, O! her hinney breath lift her locks, "Loose hings yere broidered gowd garter, Fair ladie, dare I speak?" She, trembling, lift her silken hand To her red, red flushing cheek. 'Ye've drapp'd, ye've drapp'd yere broach o' gowd, Thou Lord's daughter sae gay, The tears o'erbrimm'd her bonnie blue e'e, O come, O come away! O maid unbar the siller bolt, To my chamber let me win, I daur na let ye in, And take, quo she, 'this kame o' gowd, For meikle my heart forbodes to me, CLXXXI. HONEST MEN AND BONNY LASSES *. AIR-Roy's Wife o' Aldivalloch. How green the fields, the flowers so fair, How useless these if that there were Honest men and bonny lasses, Lang may live and happy be, A' honest men and bonny lasses. * The gentleman who transmitted this song states, "that he is informed it is the production of Patie Birnie, fiddler, Kinghorn, but as to the truth of it he cannot be certain." God's noblest work's an honest man, A bonny lass by far's the fairest, And e'er to man will be the dearest. How happy, and how blest the man, Honest men and bonny lasses, A' they wish and a' they want, CLXIV. DIRGE OF SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. They lighted a taper at the dead hour of night, And chaunted their holiest hymn, But her brow and her bosom was damp'd with affright, Her eye was all cheerless and dim: The lady of Ellerslie wept for her lord, And the death-watch beat in her lonely room, Now sing ye the death-song, and loudly pray For the night-mare rides in my strangl'd sleep; Yet knew not his country that ominous hour, That the trumpet of death on an English tower, When his dungeon light look'd dim and red, Oh! it was not thus when his oaken spear, When hosts of a thousand, were scatter'd like deer, When he strode o'er the wreck of each well fought field, His spear was not shiver'd on helmet or shield, Yet bleeding and bound, though the Wallace wight The bugle ne'er sung to a braver knight Than William of Ellerslie, But the day of his glory shall never depart, His heart unentomb'd shall with glory be palm'd, From the blood streaming altar his spirit shall start, Though the raven has fed on his mouldering heart, A nobler was never embalm'd. CLXXXII. AND HAS SHE THEN FAIL'D IN HER TRUTH ". And has she then fail'd in her truth, The beautiful maid I adore, Shall I ne'er again hear her voice, Nor see her lov'd form any more, No, no, no. I shall ne'er see her more. * From the Persian tale of Selima and Azor; also introduced in the Farce of "Love in a Village." |