The Book of Scottish Song/The Auld Man's Mear
The Auld Man's Mear.
[Both the words and air of this song are said to be the composition of Patrick or Patie Birnie, a noted fiddler and rhymer, in Kinghorn, Fifeshire, who flourished towards the close of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries, and of whom an excellent portrait by Aikman is still extant at Leslie House. Ramsay, in his Elegy on Patie Birnie, mentions "O wiltu, wiltu do't again," and "The auld man's mear's dead," as songs which Patie "made frae his ain head." We give here two different versions of the song. The second is from "The Scottish Minstrel."]
I.
The auld man's mear's dead;
The puir body's mear's dead;
The auld man's mear's dead,
A mile aboon Dundee.
There was hay to ca', and lint to lead,
A hunder hotts o' muck to spread,
And peats and truffs and a' to lead—
And yet the jaud to dee!
She had the fiercie and the fleuk,
The wheezloch and the wanton yeuk;
On ilka knee she had a breuk—
What ail'd the beast to dee?
She was lang-tooth'd and blench-lippit,
Heam-hough'd and haggis-fittit,
Lang-neckit, chandler-chaftit,
And yet the jaud to dee!
II.
The auld man's mear's dead!
The puir man's mear's dead!
The auld man's mear's dead,
A mile aboon Dundee!
She was cut-luggit, painch-lippit,
Steel-waimet, staincher-fittet,
Chanler-chaftit, lang-neckit,
Yet the brute did dee!
The auld, &c.
The auld man's mear's dead!
The puir man's mear's dead!
The peats, and neeps, and a' to lend,
And she is gane—waes me!
The auld, &c.
The puir man's head's sair
Wi' greetin' for his gray mear;
He's like to dee himsel' wi' care,
Aside the green kirk-yard.
The auld, &c.
He's thinkin' on the bygane days.
And a' her douce and canny ways:
And how his ain gudewife, auld Meg,
Micht maist as weel been spaired.
The auld, &c.