THE CAPTAIN'S LADY.

[Here is another old song, ground young again by Burns, to the tune of its own melody. In its present form it was contributed by him to Johnson's Museum.]

Tune-"O, mount and go."
WHEN the drums do beat,
And the cannons rattle,
Thou shalt sit in state,
And see thy love in battle.

O mount and go,
Mount and make you ready;
O mount and go,
And be the Captain's lady.

When the vanquished foe

Sues for peace and quiet, To the shades we'll go, And in love enjoy it.

O mount and go,

Mount and make you ready; O, mount and go,

And be the Captain's lady.

OF A' THE AIRTS THE WIND

CAN BLAW.

[The following was written during the spring of 1788, in tender tribute to Jean Armour, when the Poet was preparing to take her to their

future home, the farmhouse, then building, at Ellisland. At the time when this exquisite love song was penned he resided in a miserable hovel near the half-constructed farmhouse, at a period. often fondly alluded to by him, as that of his honeymoon. The beautiful melody to which these charming words were set was composed by Mr. Marshall, then butler to the Duke of Gordon.]

Tine-"Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey." Or a' the airts the wind can blaw,

I dearly like the west,
For there the bonnie lassie lives,
The lassie I lo'e best:

There wild woods grow, and rivers row,
And mony a hill between ;
But day and night my fancy's flight
Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair;
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
I hear her charm the air:
There's not a bonnie flower that springs
By fountain, shaw, or green,
There's not a bonnie bird that sings,
But minds me o' my Jean.

[William Reid, of the firm of Brash and Reid, booksellers, of Glasgow, later on wrote the two following stanzas, which have been deemed not unworthy of being appended to the foregoing

[Upon the banks o' flowing Clyde

The lasses busk them braw;
But when their best they ha'e put on,
My Jeannie dings them a':
In hamely weeds she far exceeds

The fairest o' the town;
Baith sage and gay confess it sae,
Though dressed in russet gown.

The gamesome lamb, that sucks its dam,
Mair harmless canna be ;
She has nae faut (if sic ye ca't),

Except her love for me.
The sparkling dew, o clearest hue,

Is like her shining een ;
In shape and air nane can compare
Wi' my sweet lovely Jean.]

[Besides these, there are, even yet, two other stanzas which may be here subjoined. harmonizing so completely as they do with the tender sentiment animating every syllable of Burns's matchless original. These concluding verses are reputed to be from the hand of John Hamilton, some time a musicselier at Edinburgh.]

[O blaw, ye weslin winds, blaw saft Amang the leafy trees,

Wi' balmy gale, frae hill and dale

Bring hame the laden bees; And bring the lassie back to me That's aye sae neat and clean; Ae smile o' her wad banish care, Sae charming is my Jean.

What sighs and vows amang the knowes

Ha'e passed atween us twa!
How fond to meet, how wae to part,
That night she gaed awa!
The Powers aboon can only ken,
To whom the heart is seen,
That nane can be sae dear to me
As my sweet lovely Jean !]

-0

WHISTLE O'ER THE LAVE O'T.

[The purifying influence of Burns's verse was here again, as upon so many similar occasions, strikingly illustrated. The obscene words previously attached to the ancient melody were swept away for ever, to give place to others at once animated and wholesome.]

Tune-"Whistle o'er the lave o't."

FIRST when Maggy was my care,
Heaven, I thought, was in her air;
Now we 're married-spier nae mair-
Whistle o'er the lave o't.
Meg was meek, and Meg was mild,
Bonnie Meg was Nature's child :
Wiser men than me 's beguiled-

Whistle o'er the lave o't.
How we live, my Meg and me,
How we love, and how we 'gree,
I care na by how few may see;
Whistle o'er the lave o't.
Wha I wish were maggots' meat,
Dished up in her winding-sheet,
I could write-but Meg maun see 't-
Whistle o'er the lave o't.

YOUR ROSY CHEEKS ARE

TURNED SAE WAN.

[These three stanzas, with a worthless refrain, "Ye ha'e lien a' wrang, lassie," have been included in so many editions of Burns, that the former, at any rate, are here repeated. Eeyond all further question, however, they are not his production.]

[Your rosy cheeks are turned sae wan,

Ye're greener than the grass, lassie ! Your coatie's shorter by a span,

Yet ne'er an inch the less, lassie.

O, lassie, ye ha'e played the fool, And ye will feel the scorn, lassie ; For aye the brose ye sup at e'en

Ye bock them e'er the morn, lassie.

O, ance ye danced upon the knowes,

And through the wood ye sang, lassie, But in the herrying o' a bee byke, I fear ye've got a stang, lassie.]

O, WERE I ON PARNASSUS' HILL.

[This, perhaps the tenderest and sweetest tribute of all to his bonnie Jean, was written by Burns shortly after he had brought her home as his wife to Ellisland. As Lockhart says, "these tributes to domestic affection are among the last of his performances one would wish to lose." Akin to this, long years afterwards, was Thomas Hood's "I love thee, I love thee, 't is all that I can say."]

Tune-" My love is lost to me."
O, WERE I on Parnassus' hill!
Or had of Helicon my fill ;
That I might catch poetic skill

To sing how dear I love thee!

But Nith maun be my Muse's well, My Muse maun be thy bonnie sel'; On Corsincon I'll glower and spell, And write how dear I love thee.

Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay!
For a' the lee-lang simmer's day
I couldna sing, I couldna say

How much, how dear I love thee.
I see thee dancing o'er the green,
Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean,
Thy tempting lips, thy roguish een-
By heaven and earth I love thee!

By night, by day, a-field, at hame,
The thoughts o' thee my breast inflame;
And aye I muse and sing thy name-

I only live to love thee.
Though I were doomed to wander on,
Beyond the sea, beyond the sun,
Till my last weary sand was run;

Till then-and then I'd love thee!

His fecket is white as the new-driven snaw;

His hose they are blae,

And his shoon like the slae,

And his clear siller buckles they dazzle us a'.

For beauty and fortune

The laddie 's been courtin'; Weel-featured, weel - tochered, weelmounted, and braw;

But chiefly the siller,

That gars him gang till her,
The penny's the jewel that beautifies a’.
There's Meg wi' the mailen,
That fain wad a haen him;
And Susie, whose daddy was laird o' the
ha';

There's lang-tochered Nancy
Maist fetters his fancy-

But the laddie 's dear sel' he lo'es dearest of a'.

[The first half-stanza of the subjoined is alone preserved from the old song to which it belonged, all the rest being original. Here again, upon snatching up the merest fragment of an antique ditty, Burns may be said quite truly, in developing it and re-animating it, to have done far more than merely create a soul under the ribs of death. His achievements in this way as a song

awa';

For he's bonnie and braw,

Weel-favoured witha',

work of wonder accomplished by Professor Owen as an ornithological anatomist, when from a single bone he theoretically sketched out his scheme as to the structure of the extinct Dinor

His coat is the hue

Of his bonnet sae blue;

of his, besides this, a flight and a vitality that have proved perennial. They are still, to this day, strongly upon the wing, and making the