The Book of Scottish Song/Oscar's Ghost

Oscar’s Ghost.

[Written by Miss Anne Keith, otherwise called Mrs. Murray Keith, a lady whom Sir Walter Scott has portrayed in the Introduction to the Chronicles of the Canongate, under the name of Mrs. Bethune Baliol. She was born in 1736, and died in April, 1818. In a letter to Terry, dated 18th April, 1818, Sir Walter says, "You will be sorry to hear that we have lost our excellent old friend, Mrs. Murray Keith. Much tradition, and of the very best kind, has died with this excellent old lady; one of the few persons whose spirits and cleanliness, and freshness of mind and body, made old age lovely and desirable."—The music to "Oscar's Ghost" is by Mrs. Tough.]

O, see that form that faintly gleams!
'Tis Oscar come to cheer my dreams!
On wings of wind he flies away;
O stay, my lovely Oscar, stay!

Wake, Ossian, last of Fingal's line,
And mix thy tears and sighs with mine;
Awake the harp to doleful lays,
And soothe my soul with Oscar's praise.

The shell is ceased in Oscar's hall,
Since gloomy Kerbar wrought his fall;
The roe on Morven lightly bounds,
Nor hears the cry of Oscar's hounds.

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