WHEN SUMMER COMES. When summer comes, the swains on Tweed Sing their successful loves; Around the ewes and lambkins feed, And music fills the groves. But my loved song is then the broom There Colin tuned his oaten reed, He sung of Tay, of Forth and Clyde, Yet more delightful is the broom Elsewhere there never grows. Not Tiviot braes, so green and gay, May with this broom compare; More pleasing far are Cowden-knowes, Ye powers that haunt the woods and plains And my loved Cowden-knowes. William Crawford wrote this song to the favourite air of Cowden-knowes, and though not one of his sweetest productions, he has graced his verse by introducing, in a very natural and pleasing way, the names of various places famous in story and song. The far-famed Cowdenknowes (if I may seek an earthly habitation for a place which seems to have an aërial locality, and to move at the will of the poet like the island of Laputa) are said to be near Melrose, on the river Leader. The old song, which celebrates Leader haughs and Yarrow as the residence of the Homes and Scotts, dwells on the loveliness of the place. I can prophesy that, for many a century, pilgrimages will be made to that neighbourhood; and that all the celebrity which ancient song has conferred will fade away before the splendour which mightier works shed around the place. Our descendants will make relics of the woods of Abbotsford; and opulent antiquaries will carry away the mansion, roof, and rafter, like the miraculous church of Loretto. THE BIRKS OF INVERMAY. The smiling morn, the breathing spring, And while they warble from each Love melts the universal lay. Let us, Amanda, timely wise, spray, Like them improve the hour that flies, For soon the winter of the year, The laverock now and lintwhite sing, The mavis and the blackbird gay Let us be blythsome then and gay Behold, the hills and vales around Hark, how the waters as they fall The wanton waves sport in the beams, Among the birks of Invermay. Much controversy has arisen about the locality of this song, but no doubt has ever been expressed regarding its beauty. Mallet, who wrote the two first verses, laid the scene in Endermay, and surely the poet knew his own meaning as well as his commentators. Allan Ramsay, however, changed it to Invermay, and the world has followed the alteration. Dr. Bryce of Kirknewton was not satisfied with the shortness of Mallet's song, and added three verses more: it must be confessed they are much in the spirit of the original. This innovation too has been approved, and Mallet goes with the double burthen to posterity, of Ramsay's amendment and Bryce's addition. The river May falls into the Erne near Duplin Castle, and on its banks, amid natural woods, stands the house of Invermay. THE LASS OF LIVINGSTON. Pain'd with her slighting Jamie's love, Well pleas'd to hear-well pleas'd to hear. From her own tongue-from her own tongue, Who now converted was to truth, And thus she sung-and thus she sung. Bless'd days when our ingenuous sex, More frank and kind-more frank and kind, But spoke their mind-but spoke their mind. |