No More Learning

[This Duncan Gray of Burns, has nothing in common with the wild old
song of that name, save the first line, and a part of the third,
neither has it any share in the sentiments of an earlier strain, with
the same title, by the same hand. It was written for the work of
Thomson. ]


I.

Duncan Gray cam here to woo,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't;
On blythe yule night when we were fou,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
Maggie coost her head fu' high,
Look'd asklent and unco skeigh,
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh;
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.

II.

Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan pray'd,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't;
Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
Duncan sigh'd baith out and in,
Grat his een baith bleer't and blin',
Spak o' lowpin o'er a linn;
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.

III.

Time and chance are but a tide,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't;
Slighted love is sair to bide,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
Shall I, like a fool, quoth he,
For a haughty hizzie die?
She may gae to--France for me!
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.

IV.

How it comes let doctors tell,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't;
Meg grew sick--as he grew heal,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
Something in her bosom wrings,
For relief a sigh she brings:
And O, her een, they spak sic things!
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.

V.

Duncan was a lad o' grace.
Ha, ha, the wooing o't;
Maggie's was a piteous case,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
Duncan could na be her death,
Swelling pity smoor'd his wrath;
Now they're crouse and canty baith,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.

* * * * *




CLXXXV.

O POORTITH CAULD.

Tune--"_I had a horse. _"

[Jean Lorimer, the Chloris and the "Lassie with the lint-white locks"
of Burns, was the heroine of this exquisite lyric: she was at that
time very young; her shape was fine, and her "dimpled cheek and cherry
mou" will be long remembered in Nithsdale. ]


I.

O poortith cauld, and restless love,
Ye wreck my peace between ye;
Yet poortith a' I could forgive,
An' twere na' for my Jeanie.
O why should fate sic pleasure have,
Life's dearest bands untwining?
Or why sae sweet a flower as love
Depend on fortune's shining?

II.

This warld's wealth when I think on,
It's pride, and a' the lave o't--
Fie, fie on silly coward man,
That he should be the slave o't!