Repenting now, I promise fair, Why lov'd I thee, deserving swain, Yet still thought shame-yet still thought shame, Ye fair, while beauty's in its spring, Own your desire-own your desire: While love's young power with his soft wing O do not with a silly pride, Or low design or low design, Refuse to be a happy bride; But answer plain-but answer plain. Thus the fair mourner wail'd her crime, With flowing eyes-with flowing eyes. Some god had led him to the grove ; His mind unchang'd—his mind unchang'd— The name of this song is all that is old-neither Ramsay, who wrote it, nor perhaps any other poet, could succeed in reclaiming the ancient words from their witty indelicacy. He wisely preferred writing something new, to the thankless and laborious office of chastening down the old heathen, and rendering it fit for modest society. But I am sorry that he found it necessary to call down the gods, since a woman could have wept very satisfactorily without them; and the confession of her love is very natural and pleasing. A tasting, however, of the old lyrical morsel of our ancestors may not be unacceptable. The bonnie lass o' Livingstone, Ye ken her name-ye ken her name, To lie her lane-to lie her lane; And I have vowed while vowing's worth Ye very grave and reverend ancestors of the present people of Scotland-it was well that Wedderburn abated your indelicate songs into "Gude and Godly Ballads;" for the fragments of many of your favourite lyrics, like the love letters of King Henry the Eighth, can neither be sung nor quoted. UNGRATEFUL NANNY. Did ever swain a nymph adore, My cheeks are swell'd with tears, but she If Nanny call'd, did e'er I stay, Or linger when she bid me run? She only had the word to say, And all she wish'd was quickly done. I always think of her, but she To let her cows my clover taste, Did ever Nanny's heifers fast, If Robin in his barn had hay? If ever Nanny lost a sheep, I cheerfully did give her two; Have they not there from cold been free? When Nanny to the well did come, My back did bear the sack, but she To Nanny's poultry oats I gave, Must Robin always Nanny woo, And Nanny still on Robin frown? Joseph Ritson mistook this song for one of tender and pastoral import. It is a city pastoral, and abounds in the conceits common to the witty youth of a populous, place. Such songs the heart of Scotland never breathed. Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes, Yet affected as it is, and though the rustic population of Scotland are secure from feeling its influence, it is still a curious song, and may be preserved as the failure of an experiment to inflict conventional wit and the smartness and conceit of a town life on country pursuits and rural manners. NANNY-O. While some for pleasure pawn "Twixt Lais and the Bagnio, their health, I'll save myself, and without stealth She bids more fair t'engage a Jove Were I to paint the queen of love, How joyfully my spirits rise, J I guess what heaven is by her eyes, Which sparkle so divinely-o. Ji. |