No More Learning

I composed these stanzas standing under the falls of Aberfeldy, at or
near Moness.

* * * * *


THE HIGHLAND LASSIE O.

This was a composition of mine in very early life, before I was known
at all in the world. My Highland lassie was a warm-hearted, charming
young creature as ever blessed a man with generous love. After a
pretty long tract of the most ardent reciprocal attachment, we met by
appointment on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot by the
banks of Ayr, where we spent the day in taking a farewell before she
should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her
friends for our projected change of life. At the close of autumn
following she crossed the sea to meet me at Greenock, where she had
scarce landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, which
hurried my dear girl to the grave in a few days, before I could even
hear of her last illness.

* * * * *


FIFE, AND A' THE LANDS ABOUT IT.

This song is Dr. Blacklock's. He, as well as I, often gave Johnson
verses, trifling enough perhaps, but they served as a vehicle to the
music.

* * * * *


WERE NA MY HEART LIGHT I WAD DIE.

Lord Hailes, in the notes to his collection of ancient Scots poems,
says that this song was the composition of a Lady Grissel Baillie,
daughter of the first Earl of Marchmont, and wife of George Baillie,
of Jerviswood.

* * * * *


THE YOUNG MAN'S DREAM.

This song is the composition of Balloon Tytler.

* * * * *


STRATHALLAN'S LAMENT.
This air in the composition of one of the worthiest and best-hearted
men living--Allan Masterton, schoolmaster in Edinburgh. As he and I
were both sprouts of Jacobitism we agreed to dedicate the words and
air to that cause.

To tell the matter-of-fact, except when my passions were heated by
some accidental cause, my Jacobitism was merely by way of _vive la
bagatelle. _

* * * * *


UP IN THE MORNING EARLY.

The chorus of this is old; the two stanzas are mine.

* * * * *


THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND.

Dr. Blacklock told me that Smollet, who was at the bottom a great
Jacobite, composed these beautiful and pathetic verses on the infamous
depredations of the Duke of Cumberland after the battle of Culloden.

* * * * *


WHAT WILL I DO GIN MY HOGGIE DIE.

Dr. Walker, who was minister at Moffat in 1772, and is now (1791)
Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, told the
following anecdote concerning this air. --He said, that some gentlemen,
riding a few years ago through Liddesdale, stopped at a hamlet
consisting of a few houses, called Moss Platt, when they were struck
with this tune, which an old woman, spinning on a rock at her door,
was singing. All she could tell concerning it was, that she was taught
it when a child, and it was called "What will I do gin my Hoggie die? "
No person, except a few females at Moss Platt, knew this fine old
tune, which in all probability would have been lost had not one of the
gentlemen, who happened to have a flute with him, taken it down.

* * * * *


I DREAM'D I LAY WHERE FLOWERS WERE SPRINGING.

These two stanzas I composed when I was seventeen, and are among the
oldest of my printed pieces.