In the manuscript of the Poet this fine song is called "A Prayer for Mary"-but no farther explanation is given. He contemplated an arrangement of all his lyric compositions sometime before his death, and it was his intention to add notes indicating the circumstances under which they were composed, and the names of the heroines. The faultless form and gentle spirit of the inspirer of these verses incline us to believe that Highland Mary was intended. Burns put almost every event of his early life, and every throb of his heart, into verse. He was shut out from knowledge; his society consisted of men of ordinary minds, from whom little could be learned; he saw nothing of the polite, of the learned, or the mercantile world; he seems not to have aspired to imitate the strains of the southern bards; he allowed his muse to do as she listed, and her song was of the maidens of Kyle and his humble compeers of the hamlet. The air of the song is true old pastoral.

THE

LASS OF BALLOCHMYLE.

Tune-" Miss Forbes' Farewell to Banff."

I.

"TWAS even—the dewy fields were green, On every blade the pearls hang,

The zephyr wanton'd round the bean,
And bore its fragrant sweets alang:
In ev'ry glen the mavis sang,

All nature listening seem'd the while, Except where greenwood echoes rang,

Amang the braes o' Ballochmyle.

II.

With careless step I onward stray'd,
My heart rejoic'd in nature's joy,
When musing in a lonely glade,

A maiden fair I chanc'd to spy;
Her look was like the morning's eye,
Her air like nature's vernal smile,
Perfection whisper'd, passing by,
Behold the lass o' Ballochmyle!

III.

Fair is the morn in flow'ry May,

And sweet is night in autumn mild; When roving thro' the garden gay,

Or wand'ring in the lonely wild: But woman, nature's darling child! There all her charms she does compile ; Even there her other works are foil'd

By the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle.

IV.

O, had she been a country maid,
And I the happy country swain,
Tho' shelter'd in the lowest shed

That ever rose on Scotland's plain,
Thro' weary winter's wind and rain,
With joy, with rapture, I would toil;

And nightly to my bosom strain

The bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle.

V.

Then pride might climb the slipp'ry steep, Where fame and honours lofty shine ; And thirst of gold might tempt the deep, Or downward seek the Indian mine;

Give me the cot below the pine,

To tend the flocks, or till the soil,

And ev'ry day have joys divine.

With the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle.

"The whole course of the Ayr," says Currie, "is fine; but the banks of that river, as it bends to the eastward above Mauchline, are singularly beautiful; and they were frequented, as may be imagined, by our Poet in his solitary walks. Here the muse often visited him. In one of those wanderings he met among the woods a celebrated beauty of the west of Scotland; a lady of whom it is said that the charms of her person corresponded with the character of her mind. This incident gave rise, as might be expected, to a poem, of which an account will be found in the following letter, in which he enclosed it to the object of his inspiration."

The letter is dated November 18, 1786: it intimates that the song of the Lass of Ballochmyle was nearly taken from real life." Though I dare say, Madam," observes the Poet, " you do not recollect it, as I believe you scarcely noticed the poetic réveur as he wandered by you. I had roved out as chance directed in the favourite haunts of my muse, on the banks of the Ayr, to view nature in all the gaiety of the vernal year. The evening sun was flaming over the distant western hills: not a breath stirred the crimson opening blossom, or the verdant spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for a poetic heart. Such was the scene, and such the hour— when, in a corner of my prospect, I spied one of the fairest pieces of nature's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape or met a poet's eye. Had Calumny or Villany taken my walk, they had at that moment sworn eternal peace with such an object. The enclosed song was the work of my return home; and perhaps it but poorly answers what might have been expected from such a scene."

Fair friends and anxious biographers have endeavoured

to defend Miss Alexander-the lass of Ballochmyle— from the imputation of neglect recorded by the Poet against her; her silence wounded his self-love. She was very young, say the former, and almost a stranger in the land; and she might not know, say the latter, that the muse of Tibullus breathed in this rustic poet; and she might be offended at the audacity of his strains. To the first it may be answered that the Poet met this beauty of the west among the woods in June, and sent her the poem in November: she was not, therefore, quite a stranger; and to the other it may be said, that if she failed to perceive the merit of the song at first, her taste improved by time, for she lived to admire it so much that she carried it about with her wherever she went, and looked upon it as a sort of charm to preserve her name to future generations.

The Poet bestowed more than common pains on this lyric the manuscript offers but few variations. The conclusion of the second verse, in one of the copies, reads thus:

"The lily's hue and rose's dye

Bespoke the lass o' Ballochmyle."