YOUNG PEGGY BLOOMS Her eyes outshine the radiant beams Her lips, more than the cherries bright, Were Fortune lovely Peggy's foe, Ye Pow'rs of Honour, Love, and Truth, HER FLOWING LOCKS Song-Farewell to Ballochmyle.1 THE Catrine woods were yellow seen, Hersel' in beauty's bloom the while; Low in your wintry beds, ye flowers, Shall birdie charm, or floweret smile; Fareweel, fareweel! sweet Ballochmyle! Fragment-Her Flowing Locks.2 HER flowing locks, the raven's wing, Her lips are roses wat wi' dew, 1 Maria is Miss Whitefoord, daughter of Whitefoord of Ballochmyle, who was ruined by the failure of the Ayr Bank, referred to in St Ronan's Well. 2 If Miss Whitefoord is the heroine, she may well have admired the audacity of the singer. HALLOWEEN Halloween.1 ; The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added, to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlightened in our own. "Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, GOLDSMITH. UPON that night, when fairies light Amang the bonie winding banks, 4 Where Bruce ance rul'd the martial ranks, This masterpiece of humorous folklore is a gem of the Kilmarnock Edition (1786.) The old sports are still, as far as burning nuts goes, practiced in the nursery. These "remains of Gentilism" survived Kirk censures, but were, for the most part, destroyed by enlightenment. a leas. 1 Is thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other mischiefmaking beings are abroad on their baneful midnight errands; particularly those aerial people, the fairies, are said on that night to hold a grand anniversary.-R.B. 2 Certain little, romantic, rocky, green hills, in the neighbourhood of the ancient seat of the Earls of Cassilis.-R.B. 3 A noted cavern near Colean house, called the Cove of Colean; which, as well as Cassilis Downans, is famed, in country story, for being a favourite haunt of fairies.-R. B. 4 The famous family of that name, the ancestors of ROBERT, the great deliverer of his country, were Earls of Carrick.-R.B. a trim. HALLOWEEN Some merry, friendly, countra-folks To burn their nits, an' pou their stocks, Fu' blythe that night. a The lasses feat, an' cleanly neat, Then, first an' foremost, thro' the kail, f mouths. An' wandered thro' the 'bow-kail,' An' pou't for want o' better shift Sae bow't that night. Then, straught or crooked, yird or nane, b handsome. ⚫ show. 1 The first ceremony of Halloween is, pulling each a "stock," or plant of kail. They must go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with: its being big or little, straight or crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all their spells-the husband or wife. If any "yird," or earth, stick to the root, that is "tocher," or fortune; and the taste of the HALLOWEEN The vera wee-things, toddlin, rin, b a Wi' cannie care, they've plac'd them The lassies staw frae 'mang them a', He grippit Nelly hard and fast: An' The auld guid-wife's weel-hoordit nits Some start awa wi' saucy pride, 8 |