mere métier of the artist aiming at a certain literary effect is equally probable. It will be found that Burns afterwards made considerable alterations in the song. THE last time I came o'er the moor, And left Maria's dwelling, What throes, what tortures passing cure, To feel a fire in every vein, Love's veriest wretch, despairing, I I know my doom must be despair, Thou wilt nor canst relieve me; But, O Maria, hear my prayer, The music of thy tongue I heard, The wheeling torrent viewing, April, 1793. BLITHE HAE I BEEN ON YON HILL. TUNE- Liggeram Cosh. BLITHE hae I been on yon hill, Heavy, heavy is the task, Hopeless love declaring; Trembling, I dow nocht but glower, can-stare Sighing, dumb, despairing! If she winna ease the thraws In my bosom swelling, Underneath the grass-green sod, Soon maun be my dwelling. throes June, 1793. LOGAN BRAES. TUNE - Logan Water.1 "Have you ever, my dear sir, felt your bosom ready to burst with indignation, on reading of those mighty villains who divide kingdom against kingdom, desolate provinces, and lay nations waste, out of the wantonness of ambition, or often from still more ignoble passions? In a mood of this kind to-day I recollected the air of Logan Water, and it occurred to me that its querulous melody probably had its origin from the plaintive indignation of some swelling, suffering heart, fired at the tyrannic strides of some public destroyer, and overwhelmed with private distress, the consequence of a country's ruin. If I have done anything 1 The air of Logan Water is old, and there are several old songs to it. Immediately before the rise of Burns, Mr. John Mayne, who afterwards became known for a poem, entitled the Siller Gun, wrote a very agreeable song to the air, beginning, "By Logan's streams, that rin sae deep." It was published in the Star newspaper, May 23, 1789. Burns having heard that song, and supposing it to be an old composition, adopted into the above a couplet from it, which he admired "While my dear lad maun face his faes, at all like justice to my feelings, the following song, composed in three quarters of an hour's meditation in my elbow-chair, ought to have some merit." - Burns to Mr. Thomson, 25th June, 1793. O LOGAN, Sweetly didst thou glide since Like drumlie Winter, dark and drear, clouded While my dear lad maun face his faes, Far, far frae me and Logan braes. Again the merry month o' May Has made our hills and valleys gay; The birds rejoice in leafy bowers, The bees hum round the breathing flowers; Blithe Morning lifts his rosy eye, And Evening's tears are tears of joy : While Willie's far frae Logan braes. Within yon milkwhite hawthorn-bush, O wae upon you, men o' state, O WERE MY LOVE YON LILAC FAIR. "Do you know the following beautiful little fragment, in Witherspoon's collection of Scots songs? "AIR- Hughie Graham. "O gin my love were yon red rose, And I mysel' a drap o' dew Into her bonny breast to fa'! "O there, beyond expression blest, 1 Originally – "Ye mind na, 'mid your cruel joys, The widow's tears, the orphan's cries." |