POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY Poor Mailie's Elegy. LAMENT in rhyme, lament in prose, Past a' remead! a The last, sad cape-stane o' his woes; Poor Mailie's dead! It's no the loss o' warl's gear, The mourning weed: He's lost a friend an' neebor dear Thro' a' the town she trotted by him; I wat she was a sheep o' sense, Thro' thievish greed. Our bardie, lanely, keeps the spenced Or, if he wanders up the howe, Comes bleating till him, owre the knowe,' For bits o' bread; An' down the briny pearls rowe For Mailie dead. THE RIGS O' BARLEY a She was nae get o' moorland tips,b For her forbears were brought in ships, Frae 'yont the Tweed. A bonier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips Than Mailie's dead.1 Wae worth the man wha first did shape Wi' chokin dread; An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape O, a' ye bards on bonie Doon! His heart will never get aboon1 His Mailie's dead! Song-The Rigs o' Barley." Tune-"Corn Rigs are bonie." It was upon a Lammas night, The time flew by, wi' tentless heed, THE RIGS O' BARLEY Corn rigs, an' barley rigs, The sky was blue, the wind was still, I ken't her heart was a' my ain; Corn rigs, an' barley rigs, &c. I lock'd her in my fond embrace; But by the moon and stars so bright, Corn rigs, an' barley rigs, &c. I hae been blythe wi' comrades dear; Corn rigs, an' barley rigs, &c. SONG COMPOSED IN AUGUST Song-Composed in August.1 Tune-"I had a horse, I had nae mair." Now westlin winds and slaught'ring guns Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain, And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night, The partridge loves the fruitful fells, Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find, Avaunt, away! the cruel sway, Tyrannic man's dominion; The sportsman's joy, the murd'ring cry, But, Peggy dear, the ev'ning 's clear, 1 This is an enlarged variant of "Har'ste, a Fragment," a very early song. Mrs Begg says that by turning "charmer" into 66 Armour," Burns adapted the line to his Jean. The text is that of the Kilmarnock edition, 1786, on which Burns made some slight alterations when he sent the song to Johnson in 1792. MY NANIE, O Come let us stray our gladsome way, We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk, Song.1 Tune-"My Nanie, O." BEHIND yon hills where Lugar flows, The westlin wind blaws loud an' shill"; ⚫ shrill. 1 Gilbert Burns avers that Robert was no Platonist; indeed Platonists were infrequent in Tarbolton. The Lugar is really the Stinchar, an excellent stream for salmon and sea-trout, and, for its length, beset by as many ruined castles as the Rhine. It enters the sea at Ballantrae. "Stinchar" and not "Lugar" is the reading in all the poet's editions. In October 1792 he writes to Thomson, "In the printed copy of my 'Nanie O!' the name of the river is horribly prosaic. I will alter it : 'Behind yon hills where Lugar flows. Girvan is the name of the river that suits the idea of the stanza best, but Lugar is the most agreeable modulation of syllables.' The variations in the Common-place Book are unimportant, except that a chorus is added. "And O, my bonie Nanie, O, My young, my handsome Nanie, 0, |