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Our sex with guile and faithless love

Is charged, perhaps, too true;
But may, dear maid, each lover prove
An Edwin still to you!

This

BONNIE DOON.

song referred to an unhappy love-story of which young Peggy K. was the heroine. See vol. i. p. 203. Another copy, considerably altered, is after wards introduced.

January, 1787.
YE flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fair!

How can ye chant, ye little birds,

And I sae fu' o' care!

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,

That sings upon the bough;
Thou minds me o' the happy days
When my fause luve was true.

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;

For sae I sat, and sae I sang,

And wistna o' my fate.

knew not

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon,
To see the woodbine twine,
And ilka bird sang o' its love,

And sae did I o' mine.

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose
Frae aff its thorny tree,

And my fause luver staw the rose,
But left the thorn wi' me.

THE GUDEWIFE OF WAUCHOPE-HOUSE TO BURNS.

During the first blaze of Burns's reputation in Edinburgh, several rhyming epistles were addressed to him publicly and privately - generally of no other value than to show how immensely he had stepped beyond all common bounds of success in cultivating the rustic Muse. One, however, from a Mrs. Scott of Wauchope, in Roxburghshire, was neatly and effectively written, and to it Burns made a suitable reply.

Mr cantie, witty, rhyming ploughman, I hafflins doubt it is na true, man,

alf

plough-handles

That ye
between the stilts was bred,
Wi' ploughmen schooled, wi' ploughmen fed;
I doubt it sair, ye've drawn your knowledge
Either frae grammar-school or college.

Guid troth, your saul and body baith
War better fed, I'd gie my aith,

Than theirs who sup sour milk and parritch,
And bummil through the single

Carritch.

Whaever heard the ploughman speak,

Could tell gif Homer was a Greek?
He'd flee as soon upon a cudgel,
As get a single line of Virgil.
And then sae slee ye crack your jokes
O' Willie Pitt and Charlie Fox,

bungle

Catechism

make

Our great men a' sae weel descrive,
And how to gar the nation thrive,
Ane maist wad swear ye dwalt amang them,
And as ye saw them, sae ye sang them.
But be ye ploughman, be ye peer,
Ye are a funny blade, I swear;

And though the cauld I ill can bide,
Yet twenty miles and mair I'd ride

endure

O'er moss and moor, and never grumble,
Though my auld yad should gie a stumble, jade
To crack a winter night wi' thee,

And hear thy sangs and sonnets slee.
Oh gif I kenn'd but whare ye baide,
I'd send to you a marled plaid;

sly

resided

checkered

'Twad haud your shouthers warm and braw, And douce at kirk or market shaw; respectable Fra' south as weel as north, my lad,

A' honest Scotsmen lo'e the maud. shepherd's plaid

BURNS TO THE GUDEWIFE OF WAUCHOPE-HOUSE.

I MIND it weel in early date,

bout

When I was beardless, young, and blate, bashful
And first could thrash the barn,
Or haud a yokin' at the pleugh,
And though forfoughten sair eneugh,
Yet unco proud to learn:

When first among the yellow corn

A man I reckoned was,

And wi' the lave ilk merry morn
Could rank my rig and lass,
Still shearing, and clearing,
The tither stooked raw,
Wi claivers, and haivers,
Wearing the day awa'.

fatigued

rest,

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merry nonsense

E'en then, a wish, I mind its power-
A wish that to my latest hour

Shall strongly heave my breast-
That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake,
Some usefu' plan or beuk could make,
Or sing a sang at least.

The rough burr-thissle, spreading wide
Amang the bearded bear,

I turned the weeder-clips aside,

barley

And spared the symbol dear!

No nation, no station,

My envy e'er could raise,
A Scot still, but blot still,

I knew nae higher praise.

But still the elements o' sang,
In formless jumble, right and wrang,
Wild floated in my brain;
Till on that har'st I said before,
My partner in the merry core,

She roused the forming strain.

I see her yet, the sonsie quean,
That lighted up my jingle,
Her witching smile, her pauky een
That gart my heart-strings tingle:

I fired, inspired,

At every kindling keek,
But bashing, and dashing,
I feared aye to speak.

Health to the sex, ilk guid chiel says,
Wi' merry dance in winter days,
And we to share in common:
The gust o' joy, the balm of wo,
The saul o' life, the heaven below,

Is rapture-giving woman.

Ye surly sumphs, who hate the name,

Be mindfu' o' your mither;
She, honest woman, may think shame

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