POLWART ON THE GREEN.

At Polwart on the green

If you'll meet me the morn,:
Where lasses do convene

To dance about the thorn,
A kindly welcome you shall meet
Frae her wha likes to view

A lover and a lad complete,.
The lad and lover you.

Let dorty dames say na,

As lang as e'er they please;

Seem caulder than the sna',

While inwardly they bleeze:
But I will frankly shaw my mind,
And yield my heart to thee;

Be ever to the captive kind,
That langs nae to be free.

At Polwart on the green,
Amang the new-mawn hay,
With sangs and dancing keen

We'll pass the heartsome day.
At night, if beds be o'er thrang laid,
And thou be twinn'd of thine,

Thou shalt be welcome, my dear lad,

To take a part of mine.

Polwarth on the Green deserves a much better song: yet unimportant as the words are, they have been claimed for two different names of very different reputation. Burns says the author is John Drummond Macgregor, of the family of Bochaldie. Who informed the poet of this, it is now impossible to discover; but the verses have generally been imputed to Allan Ramsay, and are such as he might have written at an unexpected call to fill up some chasm in his collection. Allan wasi no scrupulous person, and his reputation could afford such drawbacks as a hasty verse might require. Such dancings on the green, and round about the thorn, have perhaps wholly ceased in Scotland since the Reformation, which silenced much of our mirth: they are still com-T mon in many places in England. I confess that the last four lines of the song seem to belong to some other poeta than the author of their companions, and perhaps to an older time. This is only conjecture, and as such let it go-Ramsay has printed the first four lines and the last four in italics, probably to denote greater antiquity than the rest of the song.

My sheep I neglected, I broke my sheep-hook,
And all the gay haunts of my youth I forsook:
No more for Amynta fresh garlands I wove;
Ambition, I said, would soon eure me of love.
But what had my youth with ambition to do?
Why left I Amynta, why broke I my vow?

Through regions remote in vain do I rove,
And bid the wide world secure me from love.
Ah, fool I to imagine that aught could subdue
A love so well founded, a passion so true!
Ah, give me my sheep, and my sheep-hook restore,' ma
And I'll wander from love and Amynta no more!

Alas, 'tis too late at thy fate to repine!
Poor shepherd, Amynta no more can be thine!
Thy tears are all fruitless, thy wishes are vain,
The moments neglected return not again.
Ah, what had my youth with ambition to do?
Why left I Amynta, why broke I my vow?

1,

Sir Gilbert Elliot, ancestor of the present Lord Minto, was the author of this very beautiful pastoral;

VOL. III.

L

and we have the authority of no mean judge for saying that the poetical mantle of Sir Gilbert has descended to his family. It is among the last and best efforts of the Muse of the sheep-pipe and crook, and possesses more nature than commonly falls to the lot of those elegant and affected songs, which awake a Sicilian rather than a Scottish echo.

The old words, which were sung to the tune of "My apron, dearie," could hardly suggest so sweet and so delicate a song. I will try to pick out a passable verse as a specimen of the old song, which bestowed a name on this popular air :

O, had I ta'en counsel of father or mother,

Or had I advised with sister or brother!

But a saft and a young thing, and easy to woo,

It makes me cry out, my apron, now.

My apron, deary, my apron now,

The strings are short of my apron, now.

A saft thing, a young thing, and easy to woo,
It makes me cry out, my apron, now.

I am not even certain that these words, old as they are, and bearing the stamp of a ruder age, are the oldest which were sung to the air. I have heard a song of still ruder rhyme, and of equal freedom; and I think I can find as much of it as may enable the reader to judge, without deeply offending against delicacy:

Low, low down in yon meadow so green,

I met wi' my laddie at morning and e'en

Till my stay's grew strait-wadna meet by a span,
Sae I went to my laddie and tauld him than.

The conversation which ensues is too confidential for quotation.

MY DEARIE IF THOU DIE.

Love never more shall give me pain,
My fancy's fix'd on thee,

Nor ever maid my heart shall gain,
My Peggy, if thou die.

Thy beauty doth such pleasure give,

Thy love's so true to me,
Without thee I can nevet live,
My dearie if thou die.

If fate shall tear thee from my breast,
How shall I lonely stray:

In dreary dreams the night I'll waste,
In sighs, the silent day.