Bessie Bell & Mary Gray.
[The first four lines of the following song belong to an old ballad, of which eight lines are all that have come down to us. The rest is by Ramsay. The tune is to be found in the Orpheus Caledonius, 1725. Gay adopted it for one of his songs in the "Beggar's Opera," beginning,
A curse attends that woman's love,
Who always would be pleasing.
"The story upon which the ballad is founded," says Mr. Robert Chambers, "has been often told. The common tradition is, that Bessie Bell and Mary Gray were the daughters of two country gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Perth, and an intimate friendship subsisted between them. Bessie Bell, daughter of the Laird of Kinnaird, was on a visit to Mary Gray, at her father's house of Lynedoch, (now the seat of Lord Lynedoch,) when the plague of 1666 broke out in the country. To avoid the infection, the two young ladies built themselves a bower in a very retired and romantic spot called the Burn-braes, about three quarters of a mile west of Lynedoch House, where they resided for some time—supplied with food, it is said, by a young gentleman of Perth, who was in love with them both. The disease was unfortunately communicated to them by their lover, and proved fatal. According to custom, in cases of the plague, they were not buried in the ordinary place of sepulture, but in a secluded spot, called the Dronach Haugh, at the foot of a brae of the same name, upon the bank of the river Almond. As the ballad says—
'They thocht to lie in Methven kirk,
Amang their noble kin;
But they maun lie on Lynedoch-brae,
To beak forenent the sun.'
Some tasteful person, in modern times, has fashioned a sort of bower over the spot where the two ill-starred beauties were interred."]
O, Bessie Bell, and Mary Gray,
They were twa bonnie lasses;
They biggit a bouir on yon burn-brae,
And theekit it ower wi' rashes.
Bessie Bell I lo'ed yestreen,
And thocht I ne'er could alter;
But Mary Gray's twa pawky een
Gard a' my fancy falter.
Bessie's hair's like a lint-tap,
She smiles like a May mornin',
When Phœbus starts frae Thetis' lap,
The hills with rays adornin':
White is her neck, saft is her hand,
Her waist and feet fu' genty,
With ilka grace she can command:
Her lips, O, wow! they're denty.
Mary's locks are like the craw,
Her een like diamond's glances;
She's aye sae clean, redd-up, and braw;
She kills whene'er she dances.
Blythe as a kid, wi' wit at will,
She blooming, tight, and tall is,
And guides her airs sae gracefu' still;
O, Jove, she's like thy Pallas!
Young Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,
Ye unco sair oppress us;
Our fancies jee between ye twa,
Ye are sic bonnie lasses.
Wae's me! for baith I canna get;
To ane by law we're stentit;
Then I'll draw cuts, and tak' my fate,
And be wi' ane contentit.
Iona.
[Written by James Hogo to an old air which said to have been sung by the monks of Iona.]
Where floated crane, and clam'rous gull,
Above the misty shores of Mull,
And evermore the billows rave
'Round many a saint and sov'reign's grave.
There round Columba's ruins grey,
The shades of monks are wont to stray,
And slender forms of nuns, that weep
In moonlight by the murmuring deep.
When fancy moulds upon the mind
Light visions on the passing wind,
And woos, with faltering tongue and sigh,
The shades o'er memory's wilds that fly.
That, in that still and solemn hour,
Might stretch imagination's power,
And restless fancy revel free
In painful, pleasing luxury.
