sad, in the life of man. Hypocrisy, superstition, fanaticism owe him a heavy grudge. But in Scotland at least, and where The Holy Fair is remembered and Holy Willie is not unknown, spiritual religion owes him little but thanks. On this subject only a word more need be said. Burns lives above all, and is destined to live, in his songs. In them, at any rate, he lives for an infinitely larger public than knows much of him as the author of Halloween or The Folly Beggars. By his songs, though they too furnish his more austere censors with complaint, the service which he rendered to morality and religion is one the value of which can hardly be over-estimated. It is a remarkable fact that a country, the history of which is so much, as that of Scotland is, a history of religious or at any rate ecclesiastical events, especially battles, a country too which has not been unprolific in poetical talent, should have given birth to almost no religious poetry worth the name. Yet hardly is religious poetry a more prolific crop in the country of Dunbar and Burns and Scott than figs or peaches or bananas. It may be after all that other passions than those spiritual ones which find expression for themselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, have been chiefly concerned in those religious movements of which Scottish history is a tedious record. But be that as it may, Burns inherited from his poetical ancestry a wealth not of hymns but of songs and ballads, chiefly of course amatory. They inspired him with harmonies compared with which they are themselves harsh and out of tunethe inimitable airs to which they were sung were reverberated from his mind in words in which there is the very soul of melody. In this process of transmitting what he received from the past to the future to which he looked forward as a better day for all mankind, he changed, as regards morality, silver into gold, dirt into the fragrance of lilies and violets, foul dirt into the breath of meadows and of shady paths through woods and by the banks of murmuring streams. As a reformer of one branch of literature, when centuries that are centuries still have dwindled into years, he may perhaps be named along with John Knox and Walter Scott in the history of the Scottish Reformation. Anyhow, judged by his songs, Burns' fame has little to fear from any question being raised as to whether the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the instance of his poetry is really what it seems-a tree that is good for food and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. JOHN SERVICE. MARY MORISON. TUNE- Bide ye yet.' O Mary, at thy window be, It is the wished, the trysted hour! Those smiles and glances let me see, That make the miser's treasure poor; How blithely wad I bide the stoure', A weary slave frae sun to sun; Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison. Yestreen, when to the trembling string The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha', To thee my fancy took its wing, I sat, but neither heard nor saw; O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, A thought ungentle canna be MY NANIE, O. Behind yon hills where Lugar flows, 1 dust. The westlin wind blaws loud an' shill: The night's baith mirk and rainy, O! My Nanie's charming, sweet, an' young; A country lad is my degree, An' few there be that ken me, O; But what care I how few they be? I'm welcome ay to Nanie, O. My riches a's my penny-fee, An' I maun guide it cannie, 0: But warl's gear ne'er troubles me, My thoughts are a', my Nanie, O. Our auld Guidman delights to view His sheep an' kye thrive bonie, O; But I'm as blythe that hauds his pleugh, An' has nae care but Nanie, O. Come weal, come woe, I care na by, I'll tak what Heaven will sen' me, O; Nae ither care in life have I, But live, an' love my Nanie, O. GREEN GROW THE RASHES. A FRAGMENT. Chorus. Green grow the rashes, O; Green grow the rashes, O; The sweetest hours that e'er I spend, There's nought but care on ev'ry han', But gie me a cannie hour at e'en, For you sae douce, ye sneer at this, Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears THE DEATH AND DYING WORDS OF POOR MAILIE, THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE. 1 hoof. AN UNCO MOURNFU' TALE. As Mailie an' her lambs thegither Wi' glowrin een, an' lifted han's, 2 cast. 3 loop. ↑ wrestled. A neibor herd-callan about three-fourths as wise as other folk. 1 wool. He gaped wide, but naething spak. 'O thou, whase lamentable face An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn, 3 Wi' taets o' hay, an' ripps o' corn. 'An' may they never learn the gaets" Of ither vile, wanrestfu' pets! 6 To slink thro' slaps an' reaveR an' steal, An' bairns greet 10 for them when they're dead. An' if he live to be a beast, To pit some havins 12 in his breast! ways. ⚫ forefathers. 2 make shift. • restless. 10 weep. 7 3 small quantities. 11 4 handfuls. 8 take by force. 12 good manne s. |