Maggy Maclane.
[This truly graphic, and truly Scottish production first appeared in "The Glasgow Journal of General Literature," (Dec. 19th, 1835,) a periodical conducted by Mr. R. B. Hardy. It describes the fortunes of poor Maggy Maclane, who, from a rich young beauty, the toast and rage of the whole country-side, sunk down into a deserted and poverty-stricken old maid. Nothing could exceed the triumphs of Maggy during her brief reign. Suitors of all descriptions, and from all quarters, flocked around her, but Maggy, from the variety of her choice, was ill to please and obdurate, till her mother, "the couthie cosh Widow Maclane," accepts of one of the rejected lovers—a pawkie tailor—and the fortunes of Maggy are turned. The sketches of Maggy's wooers, and of the merry-makings held in her house, are of the richest and broadest description, while the touches of pathos that occur in painting the after-desolation of Maggy's abode—
"It's aye the dry floor, Meg's—the day e'er sae drookin';"
or the emptmess of her garner—
—"the warst's when the wee mouse looks out wi' a tear to her,
Frae the meal-kist o' Maggy Maclane,"
are eminently striking. Indeed, the whole poem we consider to be of first rate excellence, and to the lovers of genuine Scottish idiom it must prove a rare, as to most of them it will be an original, treat.—The author of Maggy Maclane was James Mayne, for many years a small jobbing printer in Glasgow, of which city he was a native. He died in the Island of Trinidad in 1842, whither he had gone some years previous, to edit a newspaper there. He was a nephew of John Mayne, author of "Logan Braes," &c.]
Doon i' the glen by the lown o' the trees,
Lies a wee theeket bield, like a bike for the bees;
But the hinnie there skepp'd—gin ye're no dour to please—
It's virgin Miss Maggy Maclane!
There's few seek Meg's shed noo, the simmer sun jookin';
It's aye the dry floor, Meg's—the day e'er sae drookin'!
But the heather-blabs hing whare the red blude's been shooken
I' bruilzies for Maggy Maclane!
Doon by Meg's howf-tree the gowk comes to woo;
But the corncraik's aye fley'd at her hallan-door joo!
An' the red-breast ne'er cheeps but the weird's at his mou',
For the last o' the roses that's gane!
Nae trystin' at Meg's noo—nae Hallowe'en rockins!
Nae howtowdie guttlens—nae mart-puddin' yockins!
Nae bane i' the blast's teeth blaws snell up Glendockens!
Clean bickers wi' Maggy Maclane!
Meg's auld lyart gutcher swarf'd dead i' the shawe:
Her bein, fouthy minnie,—she's aff an' awa'!
The grey on her pow but a simmerly snaw!—
The couthy, cosh Widow Maclane!
O titties be tentie! though air i' the day wi' ye,—
Think that the green grass may ae day be hay wi' ye!—
Think o' the leal minnie—mayna be aye wi' ye!
When sabbin' for Maggy Maclane.
