64 BLITHE HAE I BEEN ON YON HILL. [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, Sighing, dumb, despairing! In my bosom swelling, can-stare June, 1793. throes ÆT. 35.] LOGAN BRAES. 65 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, 66 '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, 66 LOGAN BRAES. [1793. 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 milk white hawthorn-bush, AT. 35.] O WERE MY LOVE YON LILAC FAIR. 67 O wae upon you, men o' state, That brethren rouse to deadly hate! 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." 68 O WERE MY LOVE YON LILAC FAIR. [1793. Sealed on her silk-saft faulds to rest, Till fleyed awa' by Phoebus' light! frightened "This thought is inexpressibly beautiful, and quite, so far as I know, original. It is too short for a song, else I would fors wear you altogether, unless you gave it a place. I have often tried to eke a stanza to it. but in vain. After balancing myself for a musing five minutes, on the hind-legs of my elbow-chair, I produced the following. "The verses are far inferior to the foregoing, I frankly confess; but if worthy of insertion at all, they might be first in place, as every poet who knows anything of his trade will husband his best thoughts for a concluding stroke.” - Burns to Mr. Thomson, 25th June, 1793. - O WERE my love yon lilac fair, Wi' purple blossoms to the spring; How I wad mourn, when it was torn When youthfu' May its bloom renewed. |