MARY.

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
And leave auld Scotia's shore?

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
Across th' Atlantic's roar?

O sweet grows the lime and the
And the apple on the pine;
But a' the charms o' the Indies
Can never equal thine.

orange,

I hae sworn by the heavens to my Mary, I hae sworn by the heavens to be true; And sae may the heavens forget me, When I forget my vow!

O plight me your faith, my Mary,
And plight me your lily-white hand!
O plight me your faith, my Mary,
Before I leave Scotia's strand.

We hae plighted our troth, my Mary,
In mutual affection to join,

And curst be the cause that shall part us,

The hour, and the moment o' time!

Of this song Burns says, "In my early years, when I was thinking of going to the West Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl. You must know that all my earlier love songs were the breathings of ardent passion; and though it might have been easy in aftertimes to have given them a polish, yet that polish to me, whose they were, and who perhaps alone cared for them, would have defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on them. Their simplicity was, as they say of wines, their race."

Sweet to the opening day,
Rosebuds bent the dewy spray;

Such thy bloom! did I say,

Phillis the fair.

Down in a shady walk,

Doves cooing were,

I mark'd the cruel hawk

Caught in a snare:

So kind may Fortune be,

Such make his destiny,

Him who would injure thee,
Phillis the fair!

"Phillis the fair" was no imaginary lady with a pastoral name, but Miss Phillis Macmurdo of Drumlanrig, a young lady of great accomplishments, on whom Clarke, the friend of Burns, lavished many praises, and the poet himself another set of verses. She was sister to "Bonnie Jean." He wrote another song to the same air-that song so full of pathetic reproach:

Had I a cave on some wild distant shore.

The heroine whose fickleness it laments was a Miss Stuart, and the forsaken hero was Alexander Cunningham, the poet's friend.

SIC A WIFE AS WILLIE HAD.

Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed,

The spot they ca'd it Linkumdoddie; Willie was a wabster gude,

Cou'd stown a clue wi' ony

bodie;

He had a wife was dour and din,

O Tinkler Madgie was her mither; Sic a wife as Willie had,

I wadna gie a button for her.

She has an e'e, she has but ane,
The cat has twa the very colour;

Five rusty teeth, forbye a stump,

A clapper tongue wad deave a miller;

A whiskin beard about her mou,

Her nose and chin they threaten ither; Sic a wife as Willie had,

I wadna gie a button for her.

She's bow-hough'd, she's hem-shinn'd,
Ae limpin leg a hand-breed shorter ;
She's twisted right, she's twisted left,
To balance fair in ilka quarter:

She has a hump upon her breast,
The twin o' that upon her shouther;
Sic a wife as Willie had,

I wadna gie a button for her.

Auld baudrons by the ingle sits,
An' wi' her loof her face is washin;
But Willie's wife is nae sa trig,

She dights her grunzie wi' a hoshen;
Her walie nieves like midden-creels,
Her face wad fyle the Logan-water;
Sic a wife as Willie had,

I wadna gie a button for her.

A ditty which contained the chorus lines of this sprightly and graphic song was once well known among the peasantry. There was a slight but curious variation: Sic a wife as Willie had,

I wadna gie a bodle for her.

The measure and value price which this little obsolete Scottish coin gives, is now less easily understood than formerly; and a button supplies its place, and illustrates the worth of Willie's spouse as near as metal can come. Willie Wastle occurs in some old vaunting rhymes:

I'm Willie o' the Wastle;

I'll bide in my castle;

And a' the dogs i' your town

Canna ding my castle down.

Who the unhappy Willie Wastle of Burns was, is of no importance to know, and it is in vain to inquire; for perhaps Linkumdoddie and tinkler Madgie never had a name and local habitation except in song.