No More Learning

Blythe hae I been on yon hill. [223]

I should wish to hear how this pleases you.

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 222: "The lines were the third and fourth:

'Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless,
And mony a widow mourning. '

As our poet had maintained a long silence, and the first number of Mr.
Thomson's musical work was in the press, this gentleman ventured, by
Mr. Erskine's advice, to substitute for them, in that publication.

'And eyes again with pleasure beam'd
That had been blear'd with mourning. '

Though better suited to the music, these lines are inferior to the
original. "--CURRIE. ]

[Footnote 223: Song CXV. ]

* * * * *




CCLIX.


TO MR. THOMSON.
[Against the mighty oppressors of the earth the poet was ever ready to
set the sharpest shafts of his wrath: the times in which he wrote were
sadly out of sorts. ]

_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 kingdoms,
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:--

O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide. [224]

Do you know the following beautiful little fragment, in Wotherspoon's
collection of Scots songs? [225]

Air--"_Hughie Graham. _"

"Oh 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,
Till fley'd awa by Phoebus light! "

This thought is inexpressibly beautiful; and quite, so far as I know,
original. It is too short for a song, else I would forswear you
altogether unless you gave it a place. I have often tried to eke a
stanza to it, but in vain. After balancing myself for a musing five
minutes, on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, I produced the following.

The verses are far inferior to the foregoing, I frankly confess: but
if worthy of insertion at all, they might be first in place; as every
poet who knows anything of his trade, will husband his best thoughts
for a concluding stroke.

Oh were my love yon lilac fair,
Wi' purple blossoms to the spring;
And I a bird to shelter there,
When wearied on my little wing!

How I wad mourn, when it was torn
By autumn wild and winter rude!