Play me up, "Sweet Marie," I cry'd,
And loud the piper blew,→

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,
Sae tempting to the sight;

Her locks owre alabaster brows,

Fell like the morning light;

And, O! her hinney breath lift her locks,
As through the dance she flew,
While luve laugh'd in her bonnie blue e'e
And dwalt on her comely mou.

"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,
And tak this kiss, thou peasant youth,

I daur na let ye in,

And take, quo she, 'this kame o' gowd,
Wi' my lock o' yellow hair,

For meikle my heart forbodes to me,
I never maun meet ye mair.'

CLXXXI.

HONEST MEN AND BONNY LASSES *.

AIR-Roy's Wife o' Aldivalloch.

How green the fields, the flowers so fair,
How bright the sun, that o'er us passes,

How useless these if that there were
Nae honest men, nor bonny lasses.

Honest men and bonny lasses,
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,
Of all that's fair in nature's plan,

And e'er to man will be the dearest.
Honest men, &c.

How happy, and how blest the man,
His days or nights can ne'er be dreary,
Who calls an honest man his friend,
And has a bonny lass for's deary.
Honest men and bonny lasses,

Honest men and bonny lasses,

A' they wish and a' they want,
To honest men and bonny lasses.

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,
For the curtains had shook of their own accord,
And the raven flapp'd at her window board,
To tell of her warrior's doom.

Now sing ye the death-song, and loudly pray
For the soul of my knight so dear,
And call me a widow this wretched day,
Since the warning of God is near,

For the night-mare rides in my strangl'd sleep;
The lord of my bosom is doom'd to die,
His valorous heart they have wounded deep,
And the blood-red tears shall his country weep,
For William of Ellerslie.-

Yet knew not his country that ominous hour,
Ere the loud matin bell had rung,

That the trumpet of death on an English tower,
Had the dirge of her champion sung,

When his dungeon light look'd dim and red,
On the high-born blood of a martyr slain,
No anthem was sung at his holy death-bed,
No weeping there was when his bosom bled,
And his heart was rent in twain.

Oh! it was not thus when his oaken spear,
Was true to the knight forlorn,

When hosts of a thousand, were scatter'd like deer,
At the blast of the hunter's horn.

When he strode o'er the wreck of each well fought field,
With the yellow-hair'd chiefs of his native land,

His spear was not shiver'd on helmet or shield,
And the sword that seem'd fit for archangel to wield,
Was light in his terrible hand.

Yet bleeding and bound, though the Wallace wight
For his much lov'd country die,

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."