For I could lay my bread and kail Wi' a' this care and a' this grief, And sma', sma' prospect of relief, But till we meet and weet our whistle, broth ROBERT BUrns. I LOVE MY JEAN. TUNE- Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey. In the spring of 1788 Burns resolved to acknowledge Jean Armour as his wife. Until a proper house should be built at Ellisland she was to remain at Mauchline, with her only surviving child, Burns living in a mere hovel alone on his farm. OF a' the airts the wind can blaw, quarters For there the bonny lassie lives, The lassie I lo'e best: There's wild woods grow, and rivers row, roll And monie a hill between ; 1 But day and night my fancy's flight Is ever wi' my Jean. I see her in the dewy flowers, 1 The commencement of this stanza is given in Johnson's Museum "There wild woods grow," etc., as implying the nature of the scenery in the west. In Wood's Songs of Scotland, the reading is "Though wild woods grow, and rivers row, Wi' monie a hill between, Baith day and night," etc., evidently an alteration designed to improve the logic of the verse. It appears that both readings are wrong, for in the original manuscript of Burns's contributions to Johnson, in the possession of Archibald Hastie, Esq., the line is written: "There wild woods grow," etc., as in our text. Another example will serve to bring this peculiarity of composition more distinctly before the mind of the reader: By Auchtertyre grows the aik, On Yarrow banks the birken shaw; Than braes o' Yarrow ever saw. I have been reminded that the idea is not new in verse: “ ἐπειὴ μάλα πολλὰ μεταξὺ Οὐρεά τε σκιόεντα, θάλασσά τε ἠχήεσσα.” Iliad, i. 156. 66 There's not a bonny flower that springs By fountain, shaw, or green, 1 The first of these stanzas appeared in the third volume of Johnson's Museum. Burns's note upon it afterwards was: This song I composed out of compliment to Mrs. Burns. N. B.-It was in the honeymoon." Two additional stanzas were some years afterwards produced by John Hamilton, music-seller in Edinburgh: O blaw, ye westlin' winds, blaw saft, Wi' balmy gale, frae hill and dale That's aye sae neat and clean; Ae smile o' her wad banish care, What sighs and vows amang the knowes Hae passed atween us twa! How fond to meet, how wae to part, That night she gaed awa'! The powers aboon can only ken, That nane can be sae dear to me As my sweet lovely Jean. sad OH, WERE I ON PARNASSUS' HILL! TUNE- My Love is lost to me. We have to suppose the poet in his solitary life at Ellisland, gazing towards the hill of Corsincon, at the head of Nithsdale, beyond which, though at many miles' distance, was the valley in which his heart's idol lived. Он, were I on Parnassus' hill, On Corsincon I'll glower and spell, stare- discourse Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay! I couldna sing, I couldna say, How much, how dear I love thee. 1 An anonymous writer in the Notes and Queries points out a similar idea to this in Propertius (II. i. 3): "Non hæc Calliope, non hæc mihi cantat Apollo, I see thee dancing o'er the green, By heaven and earth I love thee! By night, by day, a-field, at hame, Though I were doomed to wander on VERSES IN FRIARS' CARSE HERMITAGE. One piece of special good-fortune in Burns's situation at Ellisland was his having for his next neighbor, at less than a mile's distance along the bank of the Nith, Captain Riddell of Glenriddell, a man of literary and antiquarian spirit, and of kindly social nature. Captain Riddell had given Burns a key handsome. 1 Clean in this relation means well-shaped 2 It is but four or five months since he said: "I admire you, I love you as a woman beyond any one in all the circle of I am yours, Clarinda, for life!" creation. VOL. II. 10 |