The courteous red-breast, he
With leaves will cover me,
And sing my elegy
With doleful voice.
And when a ghost I am,
I'll visit thee,
Oh, thou deceitful dame,
Whose cruelty
Has kill'd the kindest heart
That e'er felt Cupid's dart,
And never can desert
From loving thee!
Had I a cave.
[Written by Burns for Thomson's collection, to the tune of "Robin Adair". The poet, in composing the song, had in his mind a passage in the history of his friend Cunningham, who was jilted by his sweetheart under peculiar circumstances of aggravation.]
Had I a cave on some wild distant shore,
Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar:
There would I weep my woes,
There seek my lost repose,
Till grief my eyes should close,
Ne'er to wake more.
Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare,
All thy fond-plighted vows—fleeting as air!
To thy new lover hie,
Laugh o'er thy perjury,
Then in thy bosom try
What peace is there!
Phillis the fair.
[Also written by Burns, for Thomson's collection, to the tune of "Robin Adair." The Phillis here celebrated was Miss Phillis Macmurdo, afterwards Mrs Norman Lockhart of Carnwath, who died in 1825.]
While larks with little wing
Fann'd the pure air,
Tasting the breathing spring,
Forth I did fare;
Gay the sun's golden eye,
Peep'd o'er the mountains high;
Such thy morn! did I cry,
Phillis the fair.
In each bird's careless song,
Glad did I share;
While yon wild flowers among,
Chance led me there.
Sweet to the opening day,
Rosebuds bent the dewy spray;
Such thy bloom! did I say,
Phillis the fair.
Down in a shady walk,
Doves cooing were:
I marked the cruel hawk
Caught in a snare.
So kind may fortune be,
Such make his destiny!
He who would injure thee,
Phillis the fair.
Adown winding Nith.
[This is another song written by Burns, for Thomson s collection, in honour of Miss Phillis or Philadelphia Macmurdo. It is adapted to the tune called "The Mucking o' Geordie's Byre." The tune has its name from an old song, the subject of which was the complaint of a young lady (said to be a baronet's daughter) who, about the beginning of the last century, married one of her father's tenants. Being disowned by her family, she was obliged to submit to the drudgery of menial labour. The two first verses are all that can be quoted.
The mucking o' Geordie's byre,
And shooling the gruip sae clean,
Has gar'd me weit my cheeks,
An' greit wi' baith my e'en.
It was not my father's will,
Nor yet my mither's desire,
That e'er I should fyle my fingers,
Wi' mucking o' Geordie's byre.
Balloon Tytler wrote a version of the old song, beginning, "As I went over yon meadow," but it is very poor. In the Orpheus Caledonius, (1725,) the tune is given to different words, beginning, "My father's a delver of dykes." These words Ramsay partially adopted in his song entitled
