We may be poor, Robie and I;

Light is the burden love lays on:
Content and love bring peace and joy;

What mair hae queens upon a throne?

I wish Burns had written more of his songs in this lively and dramatic way. The enthusiastic affection of the maiden, and the suspicious care and antique wisdom of the "dame of wrinkled eild," animate and lengthen the song without making it tedious. Robie has indeed a faithful and eloquent mistress, who vindicates true love and poverty against all the insinuations of one whose speech is spiced with very pithy and biting pro

verbs.

MY MARY.

My Mary is a bonnie lass,
Sweet as the dewy morn,
When Fancy tunes her rural reed,
Beside the upland thorn.

She lives ahint yon sunny knowe,
Where flow'rs in wild profusion grow,
Where spreading birks and hazels throw
Their shadows o'er the burn.

'Tis not the streamlet-skirted wood,
Wi' a' its leafy bow'rs,

That gars me wait in solitude

Among the wild-sprung flow'rs;
But aft I cast a langing e'e

Down frae the bank out-owre the lea;
There haply I my lass may see,

As through the broom she scours.

Yestreen I met my bonnie lassie
Coming frae the town,

We raptur'd sunk in ither's arms,
And prest the brekans down;
The pairtrick sung his e'ening note,
The rye-craik rispt his clamorous throat,
While there the heavenly vow I got,

That erl'd her my own.

The heroine of this song is surrounded with such captivating landscape, that I am at a loss whether to admire the lady or the land she lives in most. The lover himself seems to have been so sensible of the charms of inanimate nature, that he thinks it necessary to warn us that he lingers among the burns and bowers for another purpose. It is one of Tannahill's songs, and a very beautiful one.

HAD I A CAVE.

Had I a cave on some wild distant shore,
Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar,

There would I weep my woes,

There seek my lost repose,

Till grief my eyes should close,

Ne'er to wake more.

Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare
All thy fond plighted vows fleeting as air?
To thy new lover hie,

Laugh o'er thy perjury,
Then in thy bosom try,

What peace is there!

Good fortune, much more than lyric genius, must assist the poet who seeks to supply the crinkum-crankum tune of Robin Adair with verses meriting the name of poetry. The ancient song, too, is as singular as the air:

You're welcome to Paxton,
Young Robin Adair ;
You're welcome but asking,

Sweet Robin Adair!

How does Johnie Mackerel do?
Aye, and Luke Gardener too?
Come love me, and never rue,
Robin Adair.

The unfortunate termination of a friend's courtship suggested this song to Burns: the concluding verse is happy and vigorous-there is much said in few words.

BLITHE WAS SHE.

Blithe, blithe and merry was she,
Blithe was she but and ben;

Blithe by the banks of Ern,

And blithe in Glenturit glen.

By Ochtertyre grows the aik,

On Yarrow banks the birken shaw;

But Phemie was a bonnier lass

Than braes o' Yarrow ever saw.

Her looks were like a flower in May,
Her smile was like a summer morn;
She tripped by the banks of Ern,
As light's a bird upon a thorn.

Her bonny face it was as meek
As ony lamb upon a lea;

The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet
As was the blink o' Phemie's e'e.

The Highland hills I've wander'd wide,
And o'er the Lawlands I hae been;

But Phemie was the blithest lass
That ever trode the dewy green.

Burns says, "I composed these verses while I stayed at Ochtertyre with Sir William Murray. The lady, who was also at Ochtertyre at the same time, was the well known toast, Miss Euphemia Murray of Lentrose, who was called, and very justly, the Flower of Strathmore." To this notice by the poet, I have only to add, that his Muse called to the aid of the lady's charms an old song, of the same measure, from which the first lines of the present beautiful lyric are borrowed.

CONTENTED WI' LITTLE.

Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair,
Whene'er I forgather wi' sorrow and care,
I gie them a skelp as they're creepin' alang,
Wi' a cog o' gude swats, and an auld Scottish sang.