Though sunk in deep and quiet sleep, To where sweet guardian spirits keep The exile may forget his home Where blooming youth to manhood grew; The bee forget the honey-comb, Nor with the spring his toil renew ; The planets in their rounds miscarry, When I forget my bonny Mary! TICKLER. Equal to any thing in Burns! NORTH. Not a better in all George Thomson's collection. Thank you, James-God bless you, James. Give me your hand. You're a most admirable fellow, and there's no end to your genius. SHEPHERD. A man may be sair mista'en about many things, sic as yepics, an' tragedies, an' tales, an' even lang set elegies about the death o' great public characters, an' hymns, an' odes, an' the like, but he canna be mista'en about a sang. As sune as it's down on the sclate, I ken whether it's gude, bad, or middlin'. If ony o' the twa last, I dight it out wi' my elbow,-if the first, I copy it ower into writ, and then get it aff by heart, when it's as sure o' no being lost as it war engraven on a brass plate. For though I hae a treacherous memory about things in ordinar, a' my happy sangs will cleave to my heart till my dying day; an' I shouldna wonder gin I war to croon a verse or twa frae some o' them on my deathbed.-NOCTES AMBROSIANE, No. XXVII. THE LADIES' EVENING SONG WAS written long ago, for the singing of a young lady in a house where we drank very deep, rather too deep for me, though "it's no little that gars auld Donald pech." It is beautifully set by Bishop in Goulding and D'Almaine's Select Scottish Melodies, to an air something like Dumbarton Drums, if not indeed the very same. O THE glass is no for you, Bonny laddie O! The glass is no for you, Bonny laddie O! The glass is no for you, For it dyes your manly brow, An' it fills you roarin' fu', Bonny laddie O! Then drive us not away Wi' your drinkin' O! We like your presence mair Than you're thinkin' o'. How happy wad you be In our blithesome companye, Taking innocence and glee Now your een are glancing bright, Bonny laddie O! Wi' a pure an' joyfu' light, Bonny laddie O! But at ten o'clock at night, Take a lady's word in plight, We will see another sight, Bonny laddie O! There's a right path an' a wrang, Bonny laddie O! · An' you needna argue lang, Bonny laddie O! For the mair you taste an' see O' our harmless companye, Aye the happier you will be, MARY, CANST THOU LEAVE ME? I cannot Is finely set by Bishop to a melody of my own. aver that it is thoroughly my own; but if it is not, I know not where I heard it. But it is of no avail: since I think it is mine, it is equally the same as if it were so. MARY, canst thou leave me? Is there nought will move thee? I but live to love thee. When we two are parted, When the seas us sever, Still this heart, deserted, Days so dull and dreary, Is there nought can cheer me? |