A FRAGMENT. Tune-" John Anderson my Jo." ONE night as I did wander, That echoed thro' the braes. Burns sometimes hit upon one happy stanza, but, not falling readily again into the same track of feeling, allowed it to remain a fragment. Such precious things must not, however, be thrown away. Some gifted son of song, on a future day, may take a liking for the verse, and eke it out in the same spirit and feeling with which the Poet of Ayr has commenced it. That Burns completed many of our melodies in the same manner, this and the succeeding volume will sufficiently show. BONNIE PEGGY ALISON. Tune-" Braes o' Balquhidder." CHORUS. I'll kiss thee yet, yet, An' I'll kiss thee o'er again; An' I'll kiss thee yet, yet, My bonnie Peggy Alison! I. ILK care and fear, when thou art near, I ever mair defy them, O; Young kings upon their hansel throne Are no sae blest as I am, O! II. When in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, Than sic a moment's pleasure, O! III. And by thy een, sae bonnie blue, An' I'll kiss thee o'er again; An' I'll kiss thee yet, yet, My bonnie Peggy Alison! Peggy Alison, the editor has been told by a friend in the west of Scotland, was Montgomery's Peggy, the subject of other songs and the object of eight months' fruitless wooing. The Poet, it is said, exhausted all his knowledge in the art of courting to win the affections of this coy dame: he was to be seen sauntering about, watching her windows during the evening, musing in her favourite walks during the day, and, when in some propitious moment she consented to meet him after night-fall, he might be observed lingering nigh the trysting-tree" an hour before the appointed time. He sought the acquaintance of all whom he imagined could influence her, and urged and wooed with all his impassioned eloquence. Peggie was pleased with all this-she loved praise, and loved the Poet's company. The cause of her coldness has already been related. It was an early communication, though unacknowledged, to the Museum. Clark the composer was fond of it; Cromek, who had all Johnson's correspondence through his hands, saw it in the handwriting of Burns, and inserted it in the Reliques. THERE'S NOUGHT BUT CARE. Tune-" Green grow the Rashes." CHORUS. Green grow the rashes, O! Green grow the rashes, O! The sweetest hours that e'er I spend Are spent amang the lasses, O. I. THERE'S nought but care on ev'ry han', every hour that passes, 0: In What signifies the life o' man, II. The warly race may riches chase, An' tho' at last they catch them fast, III. But gie me a canny hour at e'en, 0 ; My arms about my dearie, May a' gae tapsalteerie, O. IV. For you sae douce, ye sneer at this, V. Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears The sweetest hours that e'er I spend The "Green grow the Rashes" of our ancestors had both spirit and freedom. sample: The chorus may be taken as a "Green grow the rashes, O, Green grow the rashes, O; "Pou thou me the Rushes Green," mentioned in "The Complaynt of Scotland," is likely of the same lineage as these rustic words. Burns calls his inimitable song a fragment, and says it speaks the genuine language of his heart. The incense in the concluding verse is the richest any poet ever offered at the shrine of beauty. |