No More Learning

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CXCVII.

THE RED, RED ROSE.

Air--"_Hughie Graham. _"

[There are snatches of old song so exquisitely fine that, like
fractured crystal, they cannot be mended or eked out, without showing
where the hand of the restorer has been. This seems the case with the
first verse of this song, which the poet found in Witherspoon, and
completed by the addition of the second verse, which he felt to be
inferior, by desiring Thomson to make his own the first verse, and let
the other follow, which would conclude the strain with a thought as
beautiful as it was original. ]


I.

O 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!
But I wad sing on wanton wing,
When youthfu' May its bloom renewed.

II.

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,
Till fley'd awa by Phoebus' light.

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CXCVIII.

BONNIE JEAN.

[Jean M'Murdo, the heroine of this song, the eldest daughter of John
M'Murdo of Drumlanrig, was, both in merit and look, very worthy of so
sweet a strain, and justified the poet from the charge made against
him in the West, that his beauties were not other men's beauties.
In
the M'Murdo manuscript, in Burns's handwriting, there is a
well-merited compliment which has slipt out of the printed copy in
Thomson:--

"Thy _handsome_ foot thou shalt na set
In barn or byre to trouble thee. "]


I.

There was a lass, and she was fair,
At kirk and market to be seen,
When a' the fairest maids were met,
The fairest maid was bonnie Jean.

II.

And aye she wrought her mammie's wark,
And ay she sang so merrilie:
The blithest bird upon the bush
Had ne'er a lighter heart than she.

III.

But hawks will rob the tender joys
That bless the little lintwhite's nest;
And frost will blight the fairest flowers,
And love will break the soundest rest.

IV.

Young Robie was the brawest lad,
The flower and pride of a' the glen;
And he had owsen, sheep, and kye,
And wanton naigies nine or ten.

V.

He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryste,
He danc'd wi' Jeanie on the down;
And, lang ere witless Jeanie wist,
Her heart was tint, her peace was stown.

VI.

As in the bosom o' the stream,
The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en;
So trembling, pure, was tender love
Within the breast o' bonnie Jean.

VII.

And now she works her mammie's wark,
And ay she sighs wi' care and pain;
Yet wist na what her ail might be,
Or what wad mak her weel again.

VIII.