No More Learning

The tyrant Death, with grim control,
May seize my fleeting breath;
But tearing Peggy from my soul
Must be a stronger death.

* * * * *




LXI.

TIBBIE DUNBAR.

Tune--"_Johnny M'Gill. _"

[We owe the air of this song to one Johnny M'Gill, a fiddler of
Girvan, who bestowed his own name on it: and the song itself partly to
Burns and partly to some unknown minstrel. They are both in the
Museum. ]


I.

O, Wilt thou go wi' me,
Sweet Tibbie Dunbar?
O, wilt thou go wi' me,
Sweet Tibbie Dunbar?
Wilt thou ride on a horse,
Or be drawn in a car,
Or walk by my side,
O, sweet Tibbie Dunbar?

II.

I care na thy daddie,
His lands and his money,
I care na thy kindred,
Sae high and sae lordly:
But say thou wilt hae me
For better for waur--
And come in thy coatie,
Sweet Tibbie Dunbar!

* * * * *




LXII.

STREAMS THAT GLIDE IN ORIENT PLAINS.

Tune--"_Morag.
_"

[We owe these verses to the too brief visit which the poet, in 1787,
made to Gordon Castle: he was hurried away, much against his will, by
his moody and obstinate friend William Nicol. ]


I.

Streams that glide in orient plains,
Never bound by winter's chains;
Glowing here on golden sands,
There commix'd with foulest stains
From tyranny's empurpled bands;
These, their richly gleaming waves,
I leave to tyrants and their slaves;
Give me the stream that sweetly laves
The banks by Castle-Gordon.

II.

Spicy forests, ever gay,
Shading from the burning ray,
Hapless wretches sold to toil,
Or the ruthless native's way,
Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil:
Woods that ever verdant wave,
I leave the tyrant and the slave,
Give me the groves that lofty brave
The storms by Castle-Gordon.

III.

Wildly here without control,
Nature reigns and rules the whole;
In that sober pensive mood,
Dearest to the feeling soul,
She plants the forest, pours the flood;
Life's poor day I'll musing rave,
And find at night a sheltering cave,
Where waters flow and wild woods wave,
By bonnie Castle-Gordon.

* * * * *




LXIII.

MY HARRY WAS A GALLANT GAY.

Tune--"_Highland's Lament. _"

["The chorus," says Burns, "I picked up from an old woman in Dumblane:
the rest of the song is mine. " He composed it for Johnson: the tone is
Jacobitical. ]


I.

My Harry was a gallant gay,
Fu' stately strode he on the plain:
But now he's banish'd far away,
I'll never see him back again,
O for him back again!
O for him back again!
I wad gie a' Knockhaspie's land
For Highland Harry back again.