"Slichtit Nancy," which will be found at page 101 of this collection. There are, if we mistake not, some Jacobitical songs founded on the burthen of the song, "The mucking o' Geordie's Byre;" and in the year 1819, during the Radical excitement, Alex. Rodger of Glasgow wrote a clever political song with that title, the first four lines of which ran thus:
There lives an auld farmer ca'd Geordie,
A wee bittock south o' the Tweed,
O' three bits o' farms he's ca'd lordie,
Three snug little mailings indeed, &c.]
Adown winding Nith I did wander,
To mark the sweet flowers as they spring;
Adown winding Nith I did wander,
Of Phillis to muse and to sing.
A wa' wi' your belles and your beauties!
They never wi' her can compare:
Whoever has met wi' my Phillis,
Has met wi' the queen o' the fair.
The daisy amused my fond fancy,
So artless, so simple, so wild;
Thou emblem, said I, of my Phillis,—
For she is simplicity's child.
The rosebud's the blush of my charmer,
Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis prest:
How fair and how pure is the lily!
But fairer and purer her breast.
Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour,
They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie;
Her breath is the breath of the woodbine.
Its dew-drop of diamond her eye.
Her voice is the song of the morning.
That wakes through the green spreading grove,
When Phœbus peeps over the mountains,
On music, on pleasure, and love.
But beauty, how frail and how fleeting,
The bloom of a fine summer day!
While worth in the mind of my Phillis,
Will flourish without a decay.
A wa' wi' your belles and your beauties!
They never wi' her can compare:
Whaever has met wi' my Phillis,
Has met wi' the queen o' the fair.
Halucket Meg.
[Written by the late Rev. J. Nicol, minister of Inverleithin, Peeblesshire, to the tune of "The Mucking of Geordie's byre," of which tune some account is given in the Introduction to the preceding song.]
Meg, muckin' at Geordie's byre,
Wrought as gin her judgment was wrang;
Ilk daud o' the scartle strake fire,
While, loud as a lavrock, she sang!
Her Geordie had promised to marrie,
An' Meg, a sworn fae to despair,
Not dreamin' the job could miscarrie,
Already seem'd mistress an' mair!
My neebours, she sang, aften jeer me,
An' ca' me, daft, halucket Meg,
An' say, they expect soon to hear me
I' the kirk, for my fun, get a fleg!
An' now, 'bout my marriage they clatter,
An' Geordie, poor fallow! they ca'
An' auld doitet hav'rel!—Nae matter,
He'll keep me aye brankin' an' braw!
I grant ye, his face is kenspeckle,
That the white o' his e'e is turn'd out,
That his black beard is rough as a heckle,
That his mou to his lug's rax'd about;
But they needna let on that he's crazie,
His pike-staff wull ne'er let him fa';
Nor that his hair's white as a daisie,
For, fient a hair has he ava!
But a weel-plenish'd mailin has Geordie,
An' routh o' gude goud in his kist,
An' if siller comes at my wordie,
His beauty, I never wull miss't!
Daft gouks, wha catch fire like tinder,
Think love-raptures ever will burn!
But wi' poortith, hearts het as a cinder,
Wull cauld as an iceshogle turn!
There'll just be ae bar to my pleasure,
A bar that's aft fill'd me wi' fear,
He's sic a hard, ne'er-be-gawn miser,
He likes his saul less than his gear!
But though I now flatter his failin',
An' swear nought wi' goud can compare,
Oude sooth! it sall soon get a scailin'!
His bags sail be mouldie nae mair!
