OF THE LATER SCOTCH SONG-WRITERS. WITH Allan Ramsay begins the golden age of Scottish song-writing. Before him, if we except Hamilton and Crawford, there were no song-writers of whom we can speak with much certainty; but after him, and within a hundred years, came all those poets, who, as song-writers, have reflected so much honor upon Scotland. Ramsay was a true son of nature, and one who loved and enjoyed her beauties. His songs breathe an air of light-hearted mirth and freedom, which have made them universally popular. For simplicity, tenderness, and arch humor, he is almost unequalled, and as a faithful delineator of the manners and life of the peasantry of his own time he will never be forgotten. Besides the songs which he himself wrote, he did an invaluable service to the literature of his country, in collecting as many of the songs of the preceding century as he could readily find, and editing them in a volume entitled "The Tea-Table Miscellany." It has been objected to Ramsay, that, in collecting songs, he allowed the feelings of the poet to have more weight with him than the judgment of the editor, and that when he found a song which displeased his taste, or seemed carelessly written, he did not hesitate to alter or amend it. The justice of this complaint against him is manifest, for if the old songs were fit for preservation at all, they were fit to be preserved just as they had been written; and when thus amended by an editor, the very purpose for which they ought to have been published, that of giving an insight into the life of the olden time, would in a measure be foiled; and it may be added, that "Honest Allan" was not always thus nice and discriminating in his own songs. In the "Miscellany" appeared two songs, written by Crawford, which alone would have atoned for all its short-comings had they been much greater, "Tweedside" and "The Bush aboon Traquair." Considering the age in which they were written, their elegance of versification, and chastity, is quite remarkable. Tweedside, in particular, is a song of the highest merit, and marks its author as a lyric poet of no ordinary talent. Two verses of passing beauty I will quote: "How does my love pass the long day? Does Mary not tend a few sheep? Do they never carelessly stray While happily she lies asleep? VOL. VIII. NO. 73. 40 Should Tweed's murmurs lull her to rest, ""T is she does the virgins excel, No beauty with her may compare, She's fairest where thousands are fair. Or the pleasanter banks of the Tweed?" The Scottish song-writer clings to nature with a fondness which only the peasant can feel. When his soul is full of poetry, he expresses it in images which the mountain, the sky, the lake, the woods, or the brae afford him. He looks upon visible nature, and all of beauty, sublimity, and power of which he can conceive he sees realized here. If he would lavish praise upon some loved object, his poverty of words is at fault, and he must have recourse to the warbling brook, or the flowery brae, or the singing bird, for an image; or when he hears from afar of war and strife, he thinks of the tempest, which makes the bright heaven black and gloomy, and lays low the strong forest. Our true song-writer is the farmer, who, from the morning light till the gloaming, is out in the rain and the sunshine working for his bread, and learning to be a poet, or the shepherd, who watches his flock pasturing on the hill-side or in the meadow, day in and day out for a lifetime. And so in the song nature is freely and truthfully delineated, or badly imitated, just as it is written by her own sun-embrowned child, who knows and loves because he has lived with her, or by her professional suitor, who makes her a flying visit of a week or two in each year, for the sake of stealing a little inspiration. Hogg is recognized as one of the most natural of song-writers, and, after Burns, he probably has no equal. His ancestors were shepherds, and he himself was a shepherd during the best part of his life. He knew nothing of art; he was so little cultivated that he was the laughing-stock of polished circles; but as a poet of nature he has now unfading laurels. Is there not real poetry in that song of his, where the enamored lover invites his mistress to meet him "in the glen without a name," "'tween the gloamin' and the mirk"? "When the blewart bears a pearl, And the daisy turns a pea, Has fauldit up her e'e, Then the lavrock frae the blue lift Draps down, and thinks na shame When the kye comes hame." Or, again, in that immortal ode to the sky-lark: "O'er fell and fountain sheen, O'er moor and mountain green, O'er the red streamer that heralds the day, Over the rainbow's raie, Musical cherub! hie, hie thee away. "Then, when the gloaming comes, Low in the heather-blooms, Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be." None but a peasant poet could have written these lines, and that poet, Burns. Never was maiden idolized in more tender, more bewitching strain. "I see her in the dewy flower, Sae lovely, sweet, and fair; I hear her voice in ilka bird, In music charm the air; There's not a bonnie flower that springs By fountain, shade, or green, Nor yet a bonnie bird that sings, But minds me o' my Jean." An element of the Scottish character, which has had much to do in shaping their songs and ballads, is the belief, universal to this day, in supernatural beings. This superstition is not without its bright as well as its dark side, and if there is much in it to terrify, there is no less to please. There is the will-o'-wisp, who frequents swamp and bogs, and entices the unlucky traveller, whom drink or ignorance makes unwary, far out of his path, and never sets him right again till he has given him a sound drubbing; but there is also the good Brownie, whose droll tricks set the young ones mad with glee, and who, when help is scarce and the crops heavy, assists the gudeman in his harvest-home without fee or word of thanks. Every gloomy or unfrequented loch is the abode of some Kelpie, and on certain nights of the year, when neither moon nor stars shine in the sky, invisible horsemen, on steeds fleet as the wind, scour the country for leagues around, and ruin light on the head of man, woman, or child who chances in their path; they are whisked away to the unseen land quick as thought. The little fairy folk lay their wings in every quiet nook, and by every burn-side, and many a legend connects them with the fate of child or innocent, which long, long before had wandered from its mother's care at twilight, and never again returned. Burns met Death one night, and they had a cosey chat together by moonlight, and his "Reverend Grannie" even had some experience with the Deil himself. "Aft yont the dykes she's heard you bummin Wi' Eerie drone; Or, rustlin, thro' the foostries comin', Wi' heavy groan." So "honest Tam o' Shanter," "ae dreary, windy, wintry night," actually caught sight of Auld Nick, and came near paying pretty dear for it. Though such occurrences were of the rarest, their possibility was never doubted, and though there may be scoffers and uncharitable disbelievers, yet few would act as boldly as they talk, or test the truth of Tam's experience by exposing themselves to a similar venture. Hogg was a firm believer in the beautiful superstition of his country, or at least pretended to be, and his immortal poem, "The Queen's Wake," is solely founded upon it. 66 An essay upon song-writing, however short and incomplete, would be imperfect without some mention of Burns. It is mainly to him as a poet and critic that we are indebted for Scottish songs as they now exist. Much has been said upon this subject, but it never grows uninteresting. He is one of the chosen few who are ever young." All that Homer or Milton is to epic poetry, all that Shakespeare is to tragedy, is Burns to song-writing. So pre-eminently is he the chief of song-writers, that it is doubtful if any other name can stand second to his. Indeed, his reputation as a poet depends in a great degree upon his songs. When the author of "Tam o' Shanter" and the "Cotter's Saturday Night" shall be forgotten, Burns the song-writer will be held in affectionate remembrance. Nature had made him a song-writer just as she makes some other men farmers, and gives them brawn and sinew, or others politicians, and gives them cunning, or others again orators, and gives them assurance and a skilful command of words. Song-writing was his trade, and so we see him working at it at all times. Whether he is following the plough, or cantering over the country gauging ale-barrels, the main business is never lost sight of; he is still humming some old air, and clothing it in words of beauty. Everything he sees around him in nature is suggestive of song. When he crushes the daisy beneath the freshly turned sod, or unroofs with his ploughshare the little mousie "to thole the sleety dribble and cranreuch cold," it is no slight matter to him; his whole being is aroused, and the poet's heart bleeds with sorrow and pity. He listens to the sad, sighing wail of the November wind through the naked forests, and his thought goes up to that Being "who walketh on the wings of the wind." Burns was born a peasant, and he never forgets his parentage. All his characters are taken from humble life; he describes nothing which may not naturally have fallen within the experience of every peasant, so that his songs belong to a class, rather than an individual, and one who has read them attentively has learned of Scottish humble life nearly all that there is to be learned. Perhaps there is nothing in his songs which more impresses us than their comprehensiveness, and certainly nothing which better illustrates Burns' great powers. From the highest pitch of wild exultancy, to the lowest depths of gloom and despondency, for every mood of the mind he has written a song. Not a chord of passion in the human heart but has vibrated to the touch of this master-hand. What can exceed in boisterous glee that bacchanal revel in "Willie brewed a Peck of Maut"? It has been called the finest drinking-song ever written; but "the wee bit drappie" should stand in our own e'e, before we can fully appreciate all its merits. Its glorious, ranting chorus, "We are na fou, we're na that fou, But just a drappie in our e'e, is as perfect a verse as was ever written. In the last two stanzas, "It is the moon, I ken her horn, That's blinkin thro' the lift sae hie, He is the king amang us three!" |