Wha sae base as be a slave?

Let him turn and flee!

Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa',
Let him follow me!

By oppression's woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!

Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!

Liberty's in every blow! —

Let us do or die!1

1" So may God ever defend the cause of truth and liberty, as He did that day! Amen.

"P. S. — I shewed the air to Urbani, who was highly pleased with it, and begged me to make soft verses for it; but I had no idea of giving myself any trouble on the subject, till the accidental recollection of that glorious struggle for freedom, associated with the glowing ideas of some other struggles of the same nature, not quite so ancient, roused my rhyming mania."

B.

BEHOLD THE HOUR!

TUNE- Oran Gaoil.

This piece, though sent Mr. Thomson in September, 1793, as "glowing from the mint," is only slightly altered from a song dedicated to Clarinda nearly two years before.

BEHOLD the hour, the boat arrive!

Thou goest, thou darling of my heart! Severed from thee, can I survive?

But fate has willed, and we must part.

I'll often greet this surging swell,

66

Yon distant isle will often hail:

'E'en here I took the last farewell;

There, latest marked her vanished sail."

Along the solitary shore,

While flitting sea-fowl round me cry,
Across the rolling, dashing roar,

I'll westward turn my wistful eye.

Happy, thou Indian grove, I'll say,
Where now my Nancy's path may be!
While through thy sweets she loves to stray,
Oh, tell me, does she muse on me?

DOWN THE BURN, DAVIE.

"Down the Burn, Davie - I have this moment tried an alteration, leaving out the last half of the third stanza, and the first half of the last stanza."— Burns to Mr. Thomson, Sept. 1793.

As down the burn they took their way,
And through the flowery dale,
His cheek to hers he aft did lay,

And love was aye the tale.

With "Mary, when shall we return,
Sic pleasure to renew?"

Quoth Mary: "Love, I like the burn,

And eve shall follow you."

THOU HAST LEFT ME EVER.

TUNE-Fee him, Father.

"Fee him, Father-I enclose you Fraser's set of this tune when he plays it slow: in fact, he makes it the language of despair. I shall here give you two stanzas, in that style, merely to try if it will be any improvement. Were it possible, in singing, to give it half the pathos which Fraser gives it in playing, it would make an admirably pathetic song. I do not give these verses for any merit they have. I composed them at the time in which Patie Allan's mither died that was about the back o' midnight,' and by the lee-side of a bowl of punch, which had overset every mortal in company except the hautbois and the Muse." Burns to Mr. Thomson, Sept. 1793.

THOU hast left me ever, Jamie! thou hast left

me ever;

Thou hast left me ever, Jamie! thou hast left

me ever:

Aften hast thou vowed that death only should

us sever;

Now thou'st left thy lass for aye-I maun see thee never, Jamie,

I'll see thee never.

Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie! thou hast me

forsaken;

Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie! thou hast me forsaken:

Thou canst love anither jo, while my heart is

Altered to suit the air Lewie Gordon, at the instance of Mr. Thomson.

Scors, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,

Or to glorious victory!

1 It is surprising that Burns should have thought it neces sary to substitute new verses for the old song to this air, which is one of the most exquisite effusions of genuine natural sentiment in the whole range of Scottish lyrical poetry. Its merit is now fully appreciated, while Burns's substitute song is scarcely ever sung.