We may be poor, Robie and I; Light is the burden love lays on: What mair hae queens upon a throne? I wish Burns had written more of his songs in this lively and dramatic way. The enthusiastic affection of the maiden, and the suspicious care and antique wisdom of the "dame of wrinkled eild," animate and lengthen the song without making it tedious. Robie has indeed a faithful and eloquent mistress, who vindicates true love and poverty against all the insinuations of one whose speech is spiced with very pithy and biting pro verbs. MY MARY. My Mary is a bonnie lass, She lives ahint yon sunny knowe, 'Tis not the streamlet-skirted wood, That gars me wait in solitude Among the wild-sprung flow'rs; Down frae the bank out-owre the lea; As through the broom she scours. Yestreen I met my bonnie lassie We raptur'd sunk in ither's arms, That erl'd her my own. The heroine of this song is surrounded with such captivating landscape, that I am at a loss whether to admire the lady or the land she lives in most. The lover himself seems to have been so sensible of the charms of inanimate nature, that he thinks it necessary to warn us that he lingers among the burns and bowers for another purpose. It is one of Tannahill's songs, and a very beautiful one. HAD I A CAVE. Had I a cave on some wild distant shore, There would I weep my woes, There seek my lost repose, Till grief my eyes should close, Ne'er to wake more. Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare Laugh o'er thy perjury, What peace is there! Good fortune, much more than lyric genius, must assist the poet who seeks to supply the crinkum-crankum tune of Robin Adair with verses meriting the name of poetry. The ancient song, too, is as singular as the air: You're welcome to Paxton, Sweet Robin Adair! How does Johnie Mackerel do? The unfortunate termination of a friend's courtship suggested this song to Burns: the concluding verse is happy and vigorous-there is much said in few words. BLITHE WAS SHE. Blithe, blithe and merry was she, Blithe by the banks of Ern, And blithe in Glenturit glen. By Ochtertyre grows the aik, On Yarrow banks the birken shaw; But Phemie was a bonnier lass Than braes o' Yarrow ever saw. Her looks were like a flower in May, Her bonny face it was as meek The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet The Highland hills I've wander'd wide, But Phemie was the blithest lass Burns says, "I composed these verses while I stayed at Ochtertyre with Sir William Murray. The lady, who was also at Ochtertyre at the same time, was the well known toast, Miss Euphemia Murray of Lentrose, who was called, and very justly, the Flower of Strathmore." To this notice by the poet, I have only to add, that his Muse called to the aid of the lady's charms an old song, of the same measure, from which the first lines of the present beautiful lyric are borrowed. CONTENTED WI' LITTLE. Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair, |