RANTIN, ROVIN ROBIN Tho' cruel Fate should bid us Part.1 Tune-"The Northern Lass." THO' cruel fate should bid us part, Should tenderly entwine. Tho' mountains rise, and deserts howl, Song-Rantin, Rovin Robin.2 Tune-"Daintie Davie." THERE was a lad was born in Kyle, Chor.-Robin was a rovin boy, Rantin, rovin, rantin, rovin, Our monarch's hindmost year but ane 'Twas then a blast o' Janwar' win' Blew hansela in on Robin. Robin was, &c. ⚫ a first gift. 1 Probably Jean is Miss Armour : the piece is completed, as it were, in “O’ a' the airts the wind can blaw.' Not published by Burns. The tune, Dainty Davie, is earlier, it seems, than the Presbyterian Dainty Davie, so justly admired for his gallantry by Charles II. The text depends on Cromek (1808), who gives the last verse thus : "Guid faith," quo' scho, "I doub Ye gar the lasses... The common reading, here adopted, is 8 Jan. 25, 1759, the date of my bardship's vital existence.-R. B. ELEGY ON ROBERT RUISSEAUX The gossip keekit in his loof, b Quo' scho, "Wha lives will see the proof, I think we'll ca' him Robin." "He'll hae misfortunes great an' sma', We'll a' be proud o' Robin." "But sure as three times three mak nine, This chap will dearly like our kin', So leeze me on thee! Robin." "Guid faith," quo' scho,b "I doubt you gar But twenty fauts ye may hae waur So blessins on thee! Robin." Robin was, &c. Elegy on the Death of Robert Ruisseaux.' Now Robin lies in his last lair, He'll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair; Cauld poverty, wi' hungry stare, Nae mair shall fear him; Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care, b said she. c ⚫ goodly. ⚫ peeped. 1 The date is uncertain: Mr Scott Douglas conjectures that Burns intended it for his Kilmarnock edition, d fool. • my heart is set. and withdrew it in favour of "The Poet's Epitaph." Ruisseaux is French for rivulets or 'burns,' a translation of his name. EPISTLE TO JOHN GOLDIE To tell the truth, they seldom fash'd him, Then wi' a rhyme or sang he lash'd 'em, Tho' he was bred to kintra-wark, And counted was baith wight and stark,b To mak a man ; But tell him, he was learn'd and clark," Epistle to John Goldie, in Kilmarnock.1 AUTHOR OF THE GOSPEL RECOVERED.-AUGUST 1785. O GOWDIE, terror o' the whigs, Girns an' looks back, Wishing the ten Egyptian plagues Poor gapin, glowrin Superstition! Alas, there's ground for great suspicion EPISTLE TO JOHN GOLDIE Enthusiasm's past redemption, Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption, Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple, Haste, gie her name up in the chapel,1 It's you an' Taylor2 are the chief An' twa red peats wad bring relief, For me, my skill's but very sma', And tho' they sud you sair misca', E'en swinge the dogs, and thresh them sicker"! O' something stout; It gars an owthor's pulse beat quicker, THE HOLY FAIR There's naething like the honest nappy"; As them wha like to taste the drappie, I've seen me dazed upon a time, Then back I rattle on the rhyme, 1 "Holy Fair" is a common phrase in the west of Scotland for a sacramental occasion.-R. B. Smith, of the "Cauld Harangues' (stanza 14), was an ancestor of Mr Robert Louis Stevenson. As Lockhart justly observes, Burns, in another mood, could have given a solemn picture of a very solemn occasion. These Holy Fairs arose in the Cromwellian occupation of Scotland, among the Protesters or Remonstrants, the extreme Left of the Covenanters. "A mighty multitude of devout men assemble for the wor • the least bit. ship of God, beneath the open heaven, and above the graves of their fathers," Burns had little or nothing of the old leaven of the Covenant: he descended, intellectually, from the populace whom Knox deprived of their Robin Hood Games and Sunday Golf. Heron, following, perhaps, the "Letter of a Blacksmith (1759), detected an element of "old Popish festivals" in the mingled religion and frolic of Holy Fairs. The Kirk had taken the mirth out of Scotland, tamen usque recurret, in the most incongruous of " |