That Indian wealth may lustre throw She has my heart, she has my hand, Farewell the glen sae bushy, 0, TO MARY. Another of the Poet's many songs in praise of "Highland Mary." COULD aught of song declare my pains, They who but feign a wounded heart, Then let the sudden bursting sigh For well I know thy gentle mind PRAYER FOR MARY. Supposed to be written on the eve of the Poet's intended departure for the West Indies. First published in the Reliques, from a copy supplied by the Rev. James Gray, of Dumfries, the kind friend of the widow and family of the Poet. POWERS celestial, whose protection Draw your choicest influence down. When in distant lands I roam! HIGHLAND MARY. In this song, so exquisitely mournful, we see all the anticipations, all the hopes, of Burns laid low. His Prayer was not heard. His Mary was, as it were, struck dead at his feet. She met him, by appointment, in a sequestered spot by the banks of Ayr, where she spent the day with him in taking a farewell, before she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her friends for her projected change in life. Shortly after she crossed the sea to meet him at Greenock, where she had scarcely landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, which hurried her to the grave in a few days, before he could even hear of her illness. TUNE-Katharine Ogie. YE banks, and braes, and streams around The castle o' Montgomery, Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, There simmer first unfald' her robes, And there the langest tarry! For there I took the last fareweel 1 Unfolds, How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk! Wi' monie a vow and lock'd embrace, That nipt my flower sae early! Now green 's the sod, and cauld's the clay, Oh pale, pale now, those rosy lips, TO MARY IN HEAVEN. We have seen Burns, celebrate the youth and beauty of his Mary. We have seen bim bewail her death in the most pathetic and agonizing strains. In this sublims and tender elegy, which he composed on the anniversary of her decease, his whole Boul seems overwhelmed with sadness. Agitated by the tumult of his feelings, he retired from his family, then residing on the farm of Ellisland, and wandered on the banks of the Nith and about the farm-yard nearly the whole of the night. At length he threw himself on the side of a corn-stack, and gave utterance to his grief in this divine strain of sensibility-this heart-rending address "To Mary in Heaven." TUNE-Miss Forbes's Farewell to Banff. THOU lingering star, with lessening ray, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? That sacred hour can I forget, Can I forget the hallow'd grove, Those records dear of transports past- Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!, Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore, Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes, My Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? THE AUTHOR'S FAREWELL TO HIS NATIVE COUNTRY. Burns intended this song as a farewell dirge to his native land, from which he was to embark in a few days for Jamaica. "I had taken," says he, "the last farewell of my friends: my chest was on the road to Greenock: I composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia-'The gloomy night is gathering fast.'" TUNE-Roslin Castle. THE gloomy night is gathering fast, Yon murky cloud is foul with rain, 'Tis not the surging billow's roar, Farewell old Coila's hills and dales, Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes! THE FAREWELL TO THE BRETHREN OF ST. JAMES'S LODGE, TARBOLTON. ADIEU! a heart-warm fond adieu, |