The Complete Works of Robert Burns Part 165

IV.

Thou tells o' never-ending care; O' speechless grief and dark despair: For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair!

Or my poor heart is broken!

CCL.

ON CHLORIS BEING ILL.

Tune--"_Ay wakin', O._"

[An old and once popular lyric suggested this brief and happy song for Thomson: some of the verses deserve to be held in remembrance.

Ay waking, oh, Waking ay and weary; Sleep I canna get For thinking o' my dearie.]

I.

Long, long the night, Heavy comes the morrow, While my soul's delight Is on her bed of sorrow.

Can I cease to care?

Can I cease to languish?

While my darling fair Is on the couch of anguish?

II.

Every hope is fled, Every fear is terror; Slumber even I dread, Every dream is horror.

III.

Hear me, Pow'rs divine!

Oh, in pity hear me!

Take aught else of mine, But my Chloris spare me!

Long, long the night, Heavy comes the morrow, While my soul's delight Is on her bed of sorrow.

CCLI.

CALEDONIA.

Tune--"_Humours of Glen._"

[Love of country often mingles in the lyric strains of Burns with his personal attachments, and in few more beautifully than in the following, written for Thomson the heroine was Mrs. Burns.]

I.

Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume; Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green brockan, Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom: Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers, Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen; For there, lightly tripping amang the wild flowers, A listening the linnet, aft wanders my Jean.

II.

Tho' rich is the breeze in their gay sunny valleys, And cauld CALEDONIA'S blast on the wave; Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace, What are they?--The haunt of the tyrant and slave!

The slave's spicy forests, and gold-bubbling fountains, The brave Caledonian views wi' disdain; He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains, Save love's willing fetters, the chains o' his Jean.

CCLII.

'TWAS NA HER BONNIE BLUE EEN.

Tune--"_Laddie, lie near me._"

[Though the lady who inspired these verses is called Mary by the poet, such, says tradition, was not her name: yet tradition, even in this, wavers, when it avers one while that Mrs. Riddel, and at another time that Jean Lorimer was the heroine.]

I.

'Twas na her bonnie blue een was my ruin; Fair tho' she be, that was ne'er my undoing: 'Twas the dear smile when naebody did mind us, 'Twas the bewitching, sweet stown glance o' kindness.

II.

Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me, Sair do I fear that despair maun abide me!

But tho' fell fortune should fate us to sever, Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever.

III.

Mary, I'm thine wi' a pa.s.sion sincerest, And thou hast plighted me love o' the dearest!

And thou'rt the angel that never can alter-- Sooner the sun in his motion would falter.

CCLIII.

HOW CRUEL ARE THE PARENTS.