VOL. IV.

If thou should kiss me, love,

Wha could espy thee?

If thou wad be my love,

Jamie, come try me.

Jamie, come try me,

Jamie, come try me ;

If thou would win my love,

Jamie, come try me.

K

Burns took the idea of this song from an ancient strain, of which these words are only remembered :

"If ye wad be my love,

Jamie, come try me."

Other songs to the same air supply pleasing variations :

"My heart leaps lightly, love,

When ye come nigh me;

If I had wings, my love,

Think na I'd fly thee.

The bright moon and stars, love,

None else espy thee

And if ye wad win my love,

Jamie, come try me."

Stanzas, containing a similar strain of sentiment, abound :

"I come from my chamber,
When the moon's glowing;
I walk by the streamlet,

Through the broom flowing;

If ye wad woo me, love,

Wha could deny thee?
I'm far aboon fortune, love,

When I am by thee."

Tradition has other reliques of this stamp in store; but as she is a lady not over scrupulous in her recollections we shall quote no further.

MY BONNIE MARY.

Tune-" Go fetch to me a Pint o' Wine."

I.

Go fetch to me a pint o' wine,
An' fill it in a silver tassie;
That I may drink, before I go,

A service to my bonnie lassie ;

The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith;
Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry ;

The ship rides by the Berwick-law,

And I maun leave my bonnie Mary.

II.

The trumpets sound, the banners fly,

The glittering spears are ranked ready, The shouts o' war are heard afar,

The battle closes thick and bloody;

But it's not the roar o' sea or shore
Wad make me langer wish to tarry ;
Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar-

It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary.

The Poet recited this song to his brother Gilbert, as a relique of the olden minstrelsy, and inquired if he did not think it beautiful?" Beautiful!" said his brother, "it is not only that, but the most heroic of lyrics. Ah! Robert, if you would write oftener that way, your fame would be surer." Another account says that Gilbert really believed it to be old, and called it an unequalled thing. Burns speaks of it to Mrs. Dunlop as the work of the old Scottish muse; but, in his notes on the Museum, he says:- -"This air is Oswald's; the first half-stanza of the song is old, the rest mine." Those, however, who seek in any of our collections for the first half-stanza of the song, will not likely find it. In truth, the whole is believed to be by Burns, and written, it is said, out of compliment to the feelings of a young officer about to embark for a foreign shore, whose ship rode by the Berwick-law, and who was accompanied to the pier of Leith by a young lady-the bonnie Mary of the song.

THE LAZY MIST.

Tune-" The Lazy Mist."

I.

THE lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill,
Concealing the course of the dark winding rill;
How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear!
As autumn to winter resigns the pale year.

The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown,
And all the gay foppery of summer is flown:
Apart let me wander, apart let me muse,

How quick time is flying, how keen fate pursues!

II.

How long I have liv'd-but how much liv'd in vain!
How little of life's scanty span may remain !
What aspects, old Time, in his progress, has worn!
What ties cruel fate in my bosom has torn!

How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd!
And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, how

pain'd!

This life's not worth having with all it can give—

For something beyond it poor man sure must live.