JOHN ANDERSON MY JO. "John Anderson my jo, John, We've had wi' ane anither: JOHN ANDERSON MY Jo has furnished matter for many painters and inspired many poets; but of all the strains of the latter, those of Burns continue unrivalled for liquid ease, domestic love, and elegant simplicity. The old Scottish bard who first furnished words to the air, threw his hand carelessly and roughly over the strings of his harp, and sang a strain equally unceremonious and indeli cate. Some versifier of the west of Scotland had the hardihood to add his "Paisley harn" to the "Snaw-white seventeen hunder linen" of Burns; whose exquisite ́verses had for several years to carry the ungracious burden, in spite of the eloquent and indignant remonstrances of Currie. Yet in the ancient strain we find something like the rudiments of the new. "John Anderson my jo, John, And ye sall get a sheep's-head Weel baken in a pie : And haggis in a pat, Come in an' ye'se get that." The lady held out other allurements of a more gracious kind, and John Anderson, though proof against the temptations of the table, was unable to resist this rustic Delilah. We shall now turn from Percy's "Black-Book of Ballads," where the eldern John is to be found, to the bard who ventured to eke out in Brash's and Reid's "Poetry Original and Selected," the living and vivid strain of Burns. In that curious miscellany, the song is said indeed to be "improved" by the great Robert; but though there is an occasional boldness of expression which reminds us of his hand, there is also such feebleness and want of propriety as he has nowhere else exhibited. The following verse has a Burns-like sound :— "John Anderson my jo, John, And you amang them a', John, So trig frae top to toe, She proved to be nae journey-work, John Anderson my joe." But in the feeble warp of the succeeding verses, there is no weft of gold. "John Anderson my jo, John, I wonder what you mean, To rise sae soon in the morning, John, And sit sae late at e'en; Ye'll blear out a' your e'en, John, And why should you do so? John Anderson my jo, John, Frae year to year we've past, But let na' that affright us, John, While in innocent delight we lived, This song was composed at Ellisland, and came from the muse of Burns before the dread of want disturbed him or the voice of the French Revolution sounded in his ear. He turned his furrow in hope, committed with joy his seed-corn to the ground, and looking up—which he was fond of doing—the vista of futurity, saw his own gray head honored, his wife in matron grace at his side, and his "bairns' bairns" smiling around. There is much of the man in all the lyrics of Burns; and through these compositions his passions and his hopes, his enjoyments and his sorrows, may be traced distinctly. THE WOUNDED HARE. "Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art, THE poem of “The Wounded Hare" had its origin on Nithsdale, and in a real occurrence. Burns had gone out, as was his custom, along the bank of the river, to take, what he called, a twilight shot at the muses. It was in April, 1789 the corn-braird was getting above the clod; herbs were shooting out tender and green; and a hare might, if she ventured out, pick up a dangerous morsel on haugh or holm. He had, it seems, now and then observed a hare taking a nibble on his own wheatbraird; but so far from molesting her, he rather regarded her kindly as he did the mouse on a similar occasion, and said in his heart, "I'll get a blessing wi' the lave, The poor hare, perhaps, saw too that he meant her no harm, and took the other mouthful. But she had failed to earn the compassion of one of the poet's neighbors, who stole out on her with his gun one evening, and sent her wounded and bleeding past where Burns was sauntering. The poem was composed in the moment, and he himself tells us, "On a Wounded Hare, which a fellow had just shot at." 1 The curse of the poet was uttered in vain: James Thomson, who wounded the hare, lived to old age, unconscious that a malediction in rhyme had been delivered against him; and I have heard him express much surprise, at what he called "the kippage and pucker" into which a random shot at a silly hare had thrown Burns. Indeed, he set it down as one of those distempered sallies, in which men misled by the muse are prone, it is said, to indulge. His own version of the story differed only in sensibility from that of the poet. The hares, he said, were numerous that spring, and he had seen half a dozen at a time on his father's wheat-field which lay on the march of Ellisland. This he did not like: so he stole out with his gun, and took a long shot at a hare and hit her, but on following with the hope of seeing her drop, he came unexpectedly on Burns, who cursed him bitterly, and said he had a good mind to throw him into the Nith. "And could he have done so ?" I inquired, looking at Thomson, who was both active and strong. "Could he hae done it!" exclaimed he, in evident wonder at the question; "deil a doubt but he could hae done it: he was mair than a match for most men." The field on which the hare was wounded is still pointed out, as well as the spot where the poet and the farmer had the angry parley. The latter is where the highland of the farm sinks into the holm, the poet's favorite musing place; for there he composed "Tam o' Shanter," and several of his finest lyrics; and there also some visiters from the south found him, with a rough fur cap on his head, a broadsword at his side, and a rod in his hand, angling for salmon. The place of itself is beautiful: the clover-sward bank - the green and winding hedge |