MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown,
As by His noblest work the Godhead best is known.

In vain yo flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves;
Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore,
Ye woodland choir that chaunt your idle loves,
Ye cease to charm; Eliza is no more.

Ye heathy wastes, immix'd with reedy fens ;
Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stor'd:
Ye rugged cliffs, o'erhanging dreary glens,
To you I fly-ye with my soul accord.

Princes, whose cumb'rous pride was all their worth,
Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail,
And thou, sweet Excellence! forsake our earth,
And not a Muse with honest grief bewail?

We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride,
And Virtue's light, that beams beyond the spheres ;
But, like the sun eclips'd at morning tide,

Thou left us darkling in a world of tears.

The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee,
That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care;
So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree;
So, from it ravish'd, leaves it bleak and bare.1

Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots,
On the approach of Spring.2

Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,

And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea:

1 This verse is wanting in Currie's copy.

The poets have ever sided with the victim of Elizabeth, of John Knox, and of her own brother. Even George

Buchanan adulated Mary's virtues in rhyme before he found it profitable to lie about her in prose. Burns had been reading the Percy Reliques, which accounts for the form of the piece.

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;

But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.

Now laverocks wake the merry morn
Aloft on dewy wing;

The merle, in his noontide bow'r,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis wild wi' mony a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest:
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.

Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae:
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang.

I was the Queen o' bonie France,
Where happy I hae been;
Fu' lightly raise I in the morn,
As blythe lay down at e'en :
And I'm the sov'reign of Scotland,
And mony a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands,
And never-ending care.

But as for thee, thou false woman,
My sister and my fae,

Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a sword
That thro' thy soul shall gae;

The weeping blood in woman's breast

Was never known to thee;

Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe Frae woman's pitying e'e.

TILL JAMIE COMES HAME

My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine;

And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er wad blink on mine!
God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee:

And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend,
Remember him for me!

O! soon, to me, may Summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair to me the Autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn?

And, in the narrow house of death,
Let Winter round me rave;

And the next flow'rs that deck the Spring,
Bloom on my peaceful grave!

There'll never be peace till Jamie comes
hame.1

By yon Castle wa', at the close of the day,
I heard a man sing, tho' his head it was grey:
And as he was singing, the tears doon came,-
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

The Church is in ruins, the State is in jars,
Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars,
We dare na weel say't, but we ken wha's to blame,—
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

1 If Scott is right, some such song is
older than Burns. When old Oliphant
of Gask was bed-ridden, they told him
the news of the peace of Amiens. He
merely crooned in reply: :-
"There'll never be peace till Jamie comes
hame!

Scott has a verse:There's naught in the Hielands but syboes and leeks,

And bare-legged laddies gaun wanting the breeks.

Wanting the breeks, and wi'out hose or shoon,

But we'll a' get the breeks when King

Jamie comes hame.

Burns (to Cunningham, March 11, 1791) mentions the old air, "a beautiful Jacobite air."

THE BANKS O' DOON

My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword,
But now I greet round their green beds in the yerd";
It brak the sweet heart o' my faithfu' auld dame,-
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

Now life is a burden that bows me down,
Sin' I tint my bairns, and he tint his crown;
But till my last moments my words are the same,-
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

Song-Out over the Forth.1

OUT over the Forth, I look to the North;
But what is the north and its Highlands to me?
The south nor the east gie ease to my breast,
The far foreign land, or the wide rolling sea.

But I look to the west when I gae to rest,

That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be ;

For far in the west lives he I loe best,

The man that is dear to my babie and me.

The Banks o' Doon.3

FIRST VERSION.

SWEET are the banks-the banks o' Doon,
The spreading flowers are fair,

And everything is blythe and glad,

But I am fu' o' care.

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings upon the bough;

THE BANKS O' DOON

Thou minds me o' the happy days
When my fause Luve was true:
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o' my fate.

Aft hae I rov'd by bonie Doon,
To see the woodbine twine;
And ilka bird sang o' its Luve,
And sae did I o' mine:
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Upon its thorny tree;

But my fause Luver staw my rose,
And left the thorn wi' me:
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Upon a morn in June;

And sae I flourished on the morn,
And sae was pu'd or noon!

The Banks o' Doon.1

SECOND VERSION.2

YE flowery banks o' bonie Doon,
How can ye blume sae fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu' o' care!

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings upon the bough!
Thou minds me o' the happy days
When my fause Luve was true.

1[March 1791.] "While here I sit, sad and solitary, by the side of a fire in a little country inn, and drying my wet clothes, in pops a poor fellow of a sodger, and tells me he is going to Ayr. By heavens! say I to myself, with a tide of good spirits which the

magic of that sound-'Auld Toon o' Ayr,' conjured up, I will send my last song to Mr Ballantine. Here it is."-Letter to John Ballantine, Esq., Ayr.

2 This is Cromek's version, which wants the last four lines.