Delphi Complete Works of Robert Burns (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)

by Robert Burns

  When o’er the hill the eastern star

  Tells bughtin-time is near, my jo, (etc.)

  Your observation as to the aptitude of Dr. Percy’s ballad to the air, “Nannie O,” is just. It is besides, perhaps, the most beautiful ballad in the English language. But let me remark to you, that in the sentiment and style of our Scottish airs there is a pastoral simplicity, a something that one may call the Doric style and dialect of vocal music, to which a dash of our native tongue and manners is particularly, nay, peculiarly apposite. For this reason, and upon my honour, for this reason alone, I am of opinion (but, as I told you before, my opinion is yours, freely yours to approve or reject as you please) that my ballad of “Nannie, O”, might perhaps do for one set of verses to the tune. Now don’t let it enter into your head that you are under any necessity of taking my verses. I have long ago made up my mind as to my own reputation in the business of authorship; and have nothing to be pleased or offended at, in your adoption or rejection of my verses. Though you should reject one half of what I give you, I shall be pleased with your adopting the other half, and shall continue to serve you with the same assiduity.

  In the printed copy of my “Nannie, O”, the name of the river is horridly prosaic. I will alter it,

  Behind yon hills where Lugar flows.

  Girvan is the name of the river that suits the idea of the stanza best, but Lugar is the most agreeable modulation of syllables.

  I will soon give you a great many more remarks on this business; but I have just now an opportunity of conveying you this scrawl, free of postage, an expense that it is ill able to pay; so, with my best compliments to honest Allan,140 goodbye to ye.

  Friday night.

  Saturday morning.

  As I find I have still an hour to spare this morning before my conveyance goes away, I will give you “Nannie, O”, at length.

  Your remarks on “Ewe-bughts, Marion”, are just; still it has obtained a place among our more classical Scottish songs; and what with many beauties in its composition, and more prejudices in its favour, you will not find it easy to supplant it.

  In my very early years, when I was thinking of going to the West Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl. It is quite trifling, and has nothing of the merits of “Ewe-bughts”, but it will fill up this page. You must know that all my earlier love-songs were the breathings of ardent passion, and though it might have been easy in after-times to have given them a polish, yet that polish, to me, whose they were, and who perhaps alone cared for them, would have defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on them. Their uncouth simplicity was, as they say of wines, their race.

  Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, (etc.)

  “Gala Water,” and “Auld Rob Morris,” I think, will most probably be the next subject of my musings. However, even on my verses, speak out your criticisms with equal frankness. My wish is, not to stand aloof, the uncomplying bigot of opiniâtretè, but cordially to join issue with you in the furtherance of the work. Gude speed the wark!

  Amen.

  140 David Allan, the artist.

  Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

  III.

  November 8th, 1792,

  If you mean, my dear Sir, that all the songs in your collection shall be poetry of the first merit, I am afraid you will find more difficulty in the undertaking than you are aware of. There is a peculiar rhythmus in many of our airs, and a necessity of adapting syllables to the emphasis, or what I would call the feature-notes of the tune, that cramp the poet, and lay him under almost insuperable difficulties. For instance, in the air, “My Wife’s a wanton wee Thing”, if a few lines, smooth and pretty, can be adapted to it, it is all you can expect. The enclosed were made extempore to it; and though, on farther study, I might give you something more profound, yet it might not suit the light-horse gallop of the air so well as this random clink.

  I have just been looking over the “Collier’s bonny Dochter”, and if the enclosed rhapsody which I composed the day, on a charming Ayrshire girl, Miss Baillie, as she passed through this place to England, will suit your taste better than the “Collier Lassie”, fall on and welcome.

  I have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more pathetic airs until more leisure, as they will take, and deserve a greater effort. However, they are all put into your hands, as clay into the hands of the potter, to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour. Farewell, etc.

  Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

  IV.

  Inclosing “Highland Mary”. — Tune — Katharine Ogie.

  Ye banks, and braes, and streams around, (etc.)

  14th November 1792.

  My Dear Sir, — I agree with you, that the song “Katharine Ogie”, is very poor stuff, and unworthy, altogether unworthy, of so beautiful an air. I tried to mend it; but the awkward sound “Ogie,” recurring in the rhyme, spoils every attempt at introducing sentiment into the piece. The foregoing song pleases myself; I think it is in my happiest manner; you will see at the first glance that it suits the air. The subject of the song is one of the most interesting passages of my youthful days; and I own that I should be much flattered to see the verses set to an air which would ensure celebrity. Perhaps, after all,’tis the still glowing prejudice of my heart that throws a borrowed lustre over the merits of the composition.

  I have partly taken your idea of “Auld Rob Morris”. I have adopted the two first verses, and am going on with the song on a new plan, which promises pretty well. I take up one or another, just as the bee of the moment buzzes in my bonnet-lug; and do you, sans ceremonie, make what use you choose of the productions. Adieu! etc.

  Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

  V.

  26th January 1793.

  I approve greatly, my dear Sir, of your plans. Dr. Beattie’s essay will of itself be a treasure. On my part, I mean to draw up an appendix to the Doctor’s essay, containing my stock of anecdotes, etc., of our Scots songs. All the late Mr. Tytler’s anecdotes I have by me, taken down in the course of my acquaintance with him, from his own mouth. I am such an enthusiast, that in the course of my several peregrinations through Scotland, I made a pilgrimage to the individual spot from which every song took its rise, Lochaber and the Braes of Ballendean excepted. So far as locality, either from the title of the air, or the tenor of the song, could be ascertained, I have paid my devotions at the particular shrine of every Scots Muse.

  I do not doubt but you might make a very valuable collection of Jacobite songs — but would it give no offence? In the meantime, do not you think that some of them, particularly “The Sow’s Tail to Geordie”, as an air, with other words, might be well worth a place in your collection of lively songs?

  If it were possible to procure songs of merit, it would be proper to have one set of Scots words to every air, and that the set of words to which the notes ought to be set. There is a naïvetè, a pastoral simplicity, in a slight intermixture of Scots words and phraseology, which is more in unison (at least to my taste, and, I will add, to every genuine Caledonian taste), with the simple pathos or rustic sprightliness of our native music, than any English verses whatever.

  The very name of Peter Pindar is an acquisition to your work. His “Gregory” is beautiful. I have tried to give you a set of stanzas in Scots, on the same subject, which are at your service. Not that I intend to enter the lists with Peter; that would be presumption indeed. My song, though much inferior in poetic merit, has, I think, more of the ballad simplicity in it.

  LORD GREGORY.

  O mirk, mirk is this midnight hour, (etc.)

  Your remark on the first stanza of my “Highland Mary” is just, but I cannot alter it, without injuring the poetry.

  Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

  VI.

  20th March 1793.

  My Dear Sir, — The song prefixed (“Mary Morison”) is one of my juvenile works. I leave it in your hands. I do not think it very remarkab
le, either for its merits or demerits. It is impossible (at least I feel it so in my stinted powers) to be always original, entertaining, and witty.

  What is become of the list, etc., of your songs? I shall be out of all temper with you by and by. I have always looked on myself as the prince of indolent correspondents, and valued myself accordingly; and I will not, cannot bear rivalship from you, nor anybody else.

  Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

  VII.

  7th April 1793.

  Thank you, my dear Sir, for your packet. You cannot imagine how much this business of composing for your publication has added to my enjoyments. What, with my early attachment to ballads, your book, etc., ballad-making is now as completely my hobby-horse as ever fortification was Uncle Toby’s; so I’ll e’en canter it away till I come to the limit of my race (God grant that I may take the right side of the winning-post!) and then cheerfully looking back on the honest folks with whom I have been happy, I shall say, or sing, “Sae merry as we a’ hae been” and raising my last looks to the whole human race, the last words of the voice of Coila shall be, “Good night, and joy be wi’ you a’!” So much for my last words; now for a few present remarks as they have occurred at random, on looking over your list.

  The first lines of “The last time I came o’er the Moor”, and several other lines in it, are beautiful; but in my opinion — pardon me, revered shade of Ramsay! — the song is unworthy of the divine air. I shall try to make or mend. “For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove,” is a charming song; but “Logan Burn and Logan Braes” are sweetly susceptible of rural imagery; I’ll try that likewise, and if I succeed, the other song may class among the English ones. I remember the two last lines of a verse in some of the old songs of “Logan Water” (for I know a good many different ones), which I think pretty —

  Now my dear lad maun face his faes,

  Far, far frae me, and Logan braes.

  “My Patie is a lover gay”, is unequal. “His mind is never muddy,” is a muddy expression indeed.

  Then I’ll resign and marry Pate,

  And syne my cockernony —

  This is surely far unworthy of Ramsay, or your book. My song, “Rigs of Barley”, to the same tune, does not altogether please me; but if I can mend it, and thresh a few loose sentiments out of it, I will submit it to your consideration. The “Lass o’ Patie’s Mill” is one of Ramsay’s best songs; but there is one loose sentiment in it, which my much-valued friend, Mr. Erskine, will take into his critical consideration. In Sir J. Sinclair’s statistical volumes are two claims, one I think, from Aberdeenshire, and the other from Ayrshire, for the honour of this song. The following anecdote, which I had from the present Sir William Cunningham, of Robertland, who had it of the late John, Earl of Loudon, I can on such authorities believe.

  Allan Ramsay was residing at Loudon Castle with the then Earl, father to Earl John; and one forenoon, riding or walking out together, his lordship and Allan passed a sweet romantic spot on Irwine water, still called “Patie’s Mill,” where a bonnie lass was “tedding hay, bareheaded on the green.” My lord observed to Allan, that it would be a fine theme for a song, Ramsay took the hint, and lingering behind, he composed the first sketch of it, which he produced at dinner.

  “One day I heard Mary say,” is a fine song; but for consistency’s sake, alter the name “Adonis.” Was there ever such banns published, as a purpose of marriage between Adonis and Mary? I agree with you that my song, “There’s nought but care on every hand,” is much superior to “Poortith Cauld.” The original song, “The Mill, Mill, O,” though excellent, is, on account of delicacy, inadmissible; still I like the title, and think a Scottish song would suit the notes best; and let your chosen song, which is very pretty, follow, as an English set. The “Banks of Dee” is, you know, literally “Langolee” to slow time. The song is well enough, but has some false imagery in it, for instance,

  And sweetly the nightingale sung from the tree.

  In the first place, the nightingale sings in a low bush, but never from a tree; and in the second place, there never was a nightingale seen or heard on the banks of the Dee, or on the banks of any other river in Scotland. Exotic rural imagery is always comparatively flat. If I could hit on another stanza equal to “The small birds rejoice,” etc., I do myself honestly avow that I think it a superior song. “John Anderson, my jo” — the song to this tune in Johnson’s Museum is my composition, and I think it not my worst: if it suit you, take it and welcome. Your collection of sentimental and pathetic songs is, in my opinion, very complete; but not so your comic ones. Where are “Tullochgorum,” “Lumps o’ Puddin’,” “Tibbie Fowler,” and several others, which, in my humble judgment, are well worthy of preservation? There is also one sentimental song of mine in the Museum, which never was known out of the immediate neighbourhood, until I got it taken down from a country girl’s singing. It is called “Craigie-burn Wood;” and in the opinion of Mr. Clarke is one of our sweetest Scottish songs. He is quite an enthusiast about it; and I would take his taste in Scottish music against the taste of most connoisseurs.

  You are quite right in inserting the last five in your list, though they are certainly Irish. “Shepherds, I have lost my love,” is to me a heavenly air — what would you think of a set of Scottish verses to it? I have made one a good while ago, which I think is the best love song141 I ever composed in my life; but in its original state it is not quite a lady’s song. I enclose an altered, not amended copy for you, if you choose to set the tune to it, and let the Irish verses follow.

  Mr. Erskine’s songs are all pretty, but his “Lone Vale” is divine. — Yours, etc.

  Let me know just how you like these random hints.

  141 “Yestreen I had a pint o’ wine.”

  Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

  VIII.

  April 1793.

  My Dear Sir, — I own my vanity is flattered when you give my songs a place in your elegant and superb work; but to be of service to the work is my first wish. As I have often told you, I do not in a single instance wish you, out of compliment to me, to insert anything of mine. One hint let me give you — whatever Mr. Peyel does, let him not alter one iota of the original Scottish airs; I mean in the song department; but let our national music preserve its native features. They are, I own, frequently wild, and irreducible to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect.

  Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

  IX.

  June 1793.

  When I tell you, my dear Sir, that a friend of mine, in whom I am much interested, has fallen a sacrifice to these accursed times, you will easily allow that it might unhinge me for doing any good among ballads. My own loss, as to pecuniary matters, is trifling; but the total ruin of a much-loved friend is a loss indeed. Pardon my seeming inattention to your last commands.

  I cannot alter the disputed lines in the “Mill, Mill, O.”142 What you think a defect I esteem as a positive beauty; so you see how doctors differ. I shall now, with as much alacrity as I can muster, go on with your commands.

  You know Frazer, the hautboy player in Edinburgh — he is here instructing a band of music for a fencible corps quartered in this country. Among many of the airs that please me, there is one well known as a reel, by the name of “The Quaker’s Wife”; and which I remember a grand-aunt of mine used to sing, by the name of “Liggeram Cosh, my bonnie wee lass”. Mr. Frazer plays it slow, and with an expression that quite charms me. I became such an enthusiast about it that I made a song for it, which I here subjoin, and inclose Frazer’s set of the tune. If they hit your fancy, they are at your service; if not, return me the tune, and I will put it in Johnson’s Museum. I think the song is not in my worst manner.

  Blithe hae I been on yon hill, (etc.)

  I should wish to hear how this pleases you.

  142 The lines were the third and fourth —

  Wi’ mony a sweet babe fatherless,


  And mony a widow mourning.

  Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

  X.

  June 25th 1793.

  Have you ever, my dear Sir, felt your bosom ready to burst with indignation on reading of those mighty villains who divide kingdom against kingdom, desolate provinces, and lay nations waste, out of the wantonness of ambition, or often from still more ignoble passions? In a mood of this kind to-day I recollected the air of “Logan Water;” and it occurred to me that its querulous melody probably had its origin from the plaintive indignation of some swelling, suffering heart, fired at the tyrannic strides of some public destroyer, and overwhelmed with private distress, the consequence of a country’s ruin. If I have done anything at all like justice to my feelings, the following song, composed in three quarters of an hour’s meditation in my elbow-chair, ought to have some merit.

  [Here follows “Logan Water.”]

  Do you know the following beautiful little fragment in Witherspoon’s Collection of Scots Songs?

  Air — Hughie Graham.

  O gin my love were yon red rose,

  That grows upon the castle wa’,

  And I mysel’ a drap o’ dew

  Into her bonnie breast to fa’!

  Oh, there beyond expression blest,

  I’d feast on beauty a’ the night;

  Seal’d on her silk saft faulds to rest,