ADOWN WINDING NITH I DID WANDER TUNE. The Mucking o' Geordie's Byre. ADOWN winding Nith I did wander, To mark the sweet flowers as they spring; Adown winding Nith I did wander, Of Phillis to muse and to sing. CHORUS. Awa' wi' your belles and your beauties, The daisy amused my fond fancy, The rose-bud's the blush o' my charmer, Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour, They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie: Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine, Its dew-drop o' diamond her eye. Her voice is the song of the morning, But, beauty, how frail and how fleeting- August, 1793. COME, LET ME TAKE THEE TO MY BREAST. AIR- Cauld Kail. you "The last stanza of this song I send is the very words that Coila taught me many years ago, and which I set to an old Scots reel in Johnson's Museum." - COME, let me take thee to my breast, And I shall spurn as vilest dust That I may live to love her. Thus in my arms, wi' all thy charms, DAINTY DAVIE. TUNE- Dainty Davie. "My dear sir, I have written you already by to-day's post, where I hinted at a song of mine which might suit Dainty Davie. I have been looking over another and a better song of mine in the Museum, which I have altered as follows, and which I am persuaded will please you.” — Burns to Mr. Thomson, August, 1793. The tune of Dainty Davie had been in Burns's hands some years before, when he composed to it a song with the awkward burden, The Gardener wi' his Paidle.1 Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, CHORUS. Meet me on the warlock knowe, The crystal waters round us fa', When purple Morning starts the hare, When Day, expiring in the west, And that's my ain dear Davie. koll BRUCE TO HIS MEN AT BANNOCKBURN. TUNE-Hey, tuttie taitie. "There is a tradition, which I have met with in many places in Scotland that it [the air Hey, tuttie taitie] was Robert Bruce's march at the battle of Bannockburn. This thought, in my yesternight's eveningwalk, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of liberty and independence, which I threw into a kind of Scottish ode, fitted to the air, that one might suppose to be the gallant royal Scot's address to his heroic followers on that eventful morning." Burns to Mr. Thomson, Sept. 1793. SCOTS, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Now's the day, and now's the hour; See approach proud Edward's power Wha will be a traitor knave? - |