O WHERE, TELL ME WHERE." "O WHERE, tell me where, is your Highland laddie gone? O where, tell me where, is your Highland laddie gone?" "He's gone, with streaming banners, where noble deeds are done; And my sad heart will tremble till he comes safely home." "O where, tell me where, did your Highland laddie stay? "O where, tell me where, did your Highland laddie stay?" "He dwelt beneath the holly trees, beside the rapid Spey; And many a blessing followed him the day he went away." "O what, tell me what, does your Highland laddie wear? O what, tell me what, does your Highland laddie wear?" "A bonnet with a lofty plume, the gallant badge of war, And a plaid across the manly breast that yet shall wear a star." "Suppose, ah! suppose, that some cruel, cruel wound Should pierce your Highland laddie and all your hopes confound!" The pipes would play a cheering march, the banners round him fly; The spirit of a Highland chief would lighten in his eye. "But I will hope to see him yet, in Scotland's bonnie bounds; But I will hope to see him yet, in Scotland's bonnie bounds. His native land of liberty shall nurse his glorious wounds, While wide, through all our Highland hills his warlike name resounds." COULD I FIND A BONNIE GLEN. COULD I find a bonnie glen, Warm and calm, warm and calm: Could I find a bonnie glen, Warm and calm; Free frae din, and far frae men, Where the steep and woody hill Shields the deer, shields the deer; Where the steep and woody hill Where the woodlark, singing shrill, Guards his nest beside the rill, And the thrush, with tawny bill, Warbles clear, warbles clear; Where the dashing waterfall Echoes round, echoes round; Where the dashing waterfall Echoes round; And the rustling aspen tall, And the owl, at evening's call, Joins the sound, joins the sound; There my only love I'd own, All unseen; There I'd live for her alone, To the restless world unknown, And my heart should be the throne For my queen, for my queen; And my heart should be the throne For my queen! JEAN GLOVER. 1758-1801. 66 "O'er the Muir amang the Heather" was taken down by Burns from the singing of its author, a girl to whom he assigns no very delectable character, as she was strolling through the country with a sleight-of-hand blackguard." All besides that is known of Jean Glover is contained in The Ayrshire Contemporaries of Burns. She was the daughter, it appears, of respectable parents, and was born at the Townhead of Kilmarnock. Having witnessed some performances of strolling players who visited the town, she was seized with the glamour of the stage, and eloped with one of the "heroes of the sock and buskin." From that time forth her life may or may not have justified all that Burns said of it. When she visited Muirkirk in 1795, she performed for a few nights in company with the "sleight-of-hand blackguard," whose name was Richard, in the chief room of a public-house called the Black Bottle; and the warmth of her disposition is shown by the fact that on that occasion she presented her brother, who had settled in Muirkirk, with a cheese and a boll of meal. She was described by persons who saw her then as still strikingly handsome. An old woman, also, who remembered seeing her at a fair in Irvine, spoke of her as gaily attired, and playing on a tambourine at the mouth of a close in which was the exhibition room of her husband the conjurer. "Weel do I remember her," this witness added, "and thocht her the bravest woman I had ever seen step in leather shoon." She also sometimes visited her native town, where she sang in a place of entertainment known as the Croft Lodge. Her favourite song, for the singing of which it appears she was famous, was "Green. grow the rashes." The last that was seen of her was at Letterkenny in Ireland. A native of Kilmarnock who was there with his regiment, recognised her, introduced himself, and "had the honour of her company over a social glass." She was then in good health and high spirits; but before the soldier left the place, two months later, he learned that she was dead. |