m



YARROW:

ITS POETS AND POETRY.




YARROW:

ITS POETS AND POETRY




WITH

INTRODUCTION

AND NOTES

\-jt\
BY R: BORLAND,

MINISTER

OF
YARROW.



DALBEATTIE: THOMAS FRASER.
1890.



PR



Printed by J..H. MAXWELL, Castle-Douglas,

FOR

THOMAS FRASER, DALBEATTIE.

LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LIMITED.
OLASGOW: KERR & RICHARDSON.
EDINBURGH : JOHN MENZIES & CO.



PREFACE.



THE object I have had in view in preparing this work
for the press has been to bring together the more
notable and interesting ballads and poems which Yarrow
has] inspired, and to give such brief biographical sketches of
the various poets as may prove either interesting or instructive
to the general reader. The task of making a judicious
selection from the mass of material which lay ready to hand
was none of the easiest, as Yarrow, for many generations,
has been a favourite theme of the votaries of the Muse. The
poems here published may be regarded as fairly representative
of the poetical literature of the valley. Many of them have
attained an almost world-wide celebrity ; others of them,
perhaps, derive their chief interest from local or historical
associations, and a number of them are now printed for the
first time.

I have endeavoured to give the various ballads and poems,
as nearly as possible, in the form in which I have found
them, either in the works of their respective authors, or as
printed in the newspapers and magazines in which they
were originally published. This accounts for a certain variety
of spelling which the eager eye of the critic will be sure to
detect. In not a few cases the form of a poem, or ballad, has
become so familiar to the reader that to alter it, however



justifiable the change from a merely literary point of view,
would create a feeling of disappointment. As far as possible,
therefore, I have studiously refrained from interfering with
the original text.

I have to express my heartiest thanks to all who have
favoured me with contributions, and especially to my friends,
Alex. Anderson and " J. B. Selkirk," for helpful suggestions in
preparing the work for the press; also to Mr M. M'L. Harper,
Castle-Douglas, and Mr Thos. Fraser, Dalbeattie, for their
valuable assistance in correcting the proofs. I have to
acknowledge the kindness of Macmillan & Co. for permission
to use Principal Shairp's poem, "Three Friends in Yarrow,"
originally published in Glen Desserqy. My warmest thanks
are also due to Mrs Mangin for her sketches of Yarrow
here reproduced.

The portion of the work for which I am more immediately
responsible can lay no claim to any special literary merit.
I have been mainly anxious to furnish whatever information
may be necessary for the due appreciation of the local and
historical setting of the various poems here brought together.

R. B.

MANSE or YARROW,

July 3Oth, 1890.



CONTENTS.



PAGI.

Preface, ... ... ... ... ... ... ... v

Introduction, ... ... ... ... ... ... i

The Dowie Dens of Yarrow, ... ... ... ... 13

Willie's Drowned in Yarrow, ... ... ... ... 22

Tamlane, ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 25

Song of the Outlaw Murray, ... ... ... ... 32

The Douglas Tragedy, ... ... ... ... ... 47

The Border Widow's Lament, ... ... ... ... 52

ALLAN RAMSAY, ... ... ... ... ... ... 56

Mary Scott, ... ... ... ... ... 58

The Rose in Yarrow, ... ... ... ... ... 59

WILLIAM HAMILTON, ... ... ... ... ... 61

The Braes of Yarrow, ... ... ... ... ... 62

ALISON RUTHERFORD, ... ... ... ... ... 68

The Flowers of the Forest, ... ... ... ... 69

JEAN ELLIOT, ... ... ... ... ... ... 71

The Flowers of the Forest, ... ... ... ... 72

JOHN LOGAN, ... ... ... ... ... ... 74

The Braes of Yarrow, ... ... ... ... ... 75

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, ... ... ... ... 77

Yarrow Unvisited, ... ... ... ... ... 84

Yarrow Visited, ... ... ... ... ... 88

Yarrow Revisited, ... ... ... ... ... 92

JAMES HOGG, ... ... ... ... ... ... 98

Description of Mount Benger, ... ... ... ... 112

By a Bush, ... ... ... ... ... 113

Will and Davie, ... ... ... ... ... 115

The Lassie of Yarrow, ... ... ... ... 120

St. Mary of the Lowes, ... ... ... ... 122

SIR WALTER SCOTT, ... ... ... ... ... 127

Hushed is the Harp, ... ... ... ... ... 135

Burning of St. Mary's Kirk,... ... ... ... 136

Yarrow in the Olden Time, ... ... ... ... 137

WILLIAM LAIDLAW, ... ... ... ... ... 147

Lucy's Flittin', ... ... ... ... ... 149

JOHN WILSON, ... ... ... ... ... 152

Snowstorm in Yarrow, ... ... ... ... ... 164

HENRY SCOTT RIDDLE, ... ... ... ... 169

The Dowie Dens of Yarrow, ... ... ... ... 173

JOHN STUART BLACKIE, ... ... ... ... 175

Renwick at Riskinhope, ... ... ... ... 177

A Lay of St. Mary's Loch, ... ... ... ... 182



JOHN CAMPBELL SHAIRP, ... ... ... ... ... 189

Yarrow Water, ... ... ... ... ... 193

Three Friends in Yarrow, ... ... ... ... 195

JOHN VEITCH, ... ... ... ... ... 198

In Yarrow, ... ... ... ... ... ... 199

St. Mary's Loch, ... ... ... ... ... 201

The Dow Glen, ... ... ... ... ... 202

In Memoriam : Rev. James Russell, D.D., ... ... 205

In Memoriam : Rev. Thomas M'Crindle, ... ... ... 206

JAMES BROWN [" J. B. Selkirk,"] ... ... ... 208

A Song of Yarrow, ... ... ... ... ... 209

Death in Yarrow, ... ... ... ... ... 212

Retreat in Yarrow : Dobb's Linn, ... ... ... 215

ANDREW LANG, ... ... ... ... ... 218

A Sunset in Yarrow, ... ... ... ... ... 219

ALEXANDER ANDERSON, ... ... ... ... 220

In Yarrow, ... ... ... ... ... ... 221

On Yarrow Braes, ... ... ... ... ... 224

St. Mary's Lake, ... ... ... ... ... 226

Yarrow Stream, ... ... ... ... ... 228

St. Mary's Loch : a Reminiscence, ... ... ... ... 233

CONSTANCE W. MANGIN, ... ... ... ... 235

A Remembrance of Yarrow, ... ... ... ... 235

ANNIE S. SWAN, ... ... ... ... ... 237

St. Mary's, ... ... .. ... ... ... 237

THOMAS RAE, ... ... ... ... ... 238

Yarrow (A Memory), ... ... ... ... .. 238






INTRODUCTION.

" Flow on for ever, Yarrow stream !

Fulfil thy pensive duty,

Well pleased that future bards should chant
For simple hearts thy beauty." WORDSWORTH.

/ T N HERE are few streams in any land that have been so
J- much besung as " ballad - haunted Yarrow." For
some hundreds of years it has had for the poetic mind a
strange, weird, almost irresistible fascination. Men of the
most diverse genius have come under its spell, and have
sung its praises in numbers characterised alike by strength
and tenderness of passion. And what is, perhaps, still more
remarkable though Yarrow has many singers, the key-note of
all their songs is the same. There is a strain of sadness in the
music, an under-current of sorrow, giving a definite tone and
feeling to the whole. It seems impossible for any one who has
been touched by the spirit of the Vale to shake himself
altogether free from this feeling. Let the theme of his song be
what it may, let him sing with an air as jocund as the gayest
heart could wish, yet while we are listening to his inspiring
strains, we are conscious, as it were, that some one is playing a
dirge in the next room. " Somehow in the poetry of Yarrow,"
says Professor Veitch, " be it Ballad or Song, there is a deeper



2 INTRODUCTION.

tinge of sorrow (as compared with the Tweed), often a very
dark colouring, an almost overpowering sadness. The emotion
is that so finely expressed in a late period in ' The Flowers of
the Forest.' The feeling is as of a brief, bright morning, full
of promise, making the hills splendid and the heart glad, but ere
noon we have cloud and rain and tears, and evening closes
around us with only the memory of the vanished joy." Why
the prevailing tone of the literature of Yarrow should be so
uniformly one of sadness, it may be somewhat difficult satis-
factorily to explain. Professor Veitch, in his admirable work
on The History and Poetry of the Scottish Border, seems
of opinion that the configuration and general physical char-
acteristics of the district have had much to do in creating this
feeling of sadness. He says : Nor will any one who is
familiar with the Vale of Yarrow have had much difficulty in
understanding how it is suited to pathetic verse. The rough
and broken, yet clear, beautiful and wide-spreading stream has
no grand cliffs to show ; and it is not surrounded by high
and overshadowing hills. Here and there it flows placidly,
reflectively, in large liquid lapses, through an open valley of
the deepest summer green ; still, let us be thankful, in its upper
reaches at least, mantled by nature and untouched by plough
or harrow. There is a placid monotone about its bare treeless
scenery an unbroken pastoral stillness on the sloping braes
and hillsides, as they rise, fall, and bend in a uniformly
deep colouring. The silence of the place is forced upon the
attention, deepened even by the occasional break in the flow



INTRODUCTION. 3

of the stream, or by the bleating of the sheep that, white
and motionless amid the pasture, dot the knowes. We are
attracted by the silence, and we are also depressed. There
is the pleasure of hushed enjoyment. The spirit of the scene
is in these immortal lines :

1 Meek loveliness around thee spread,

A softness still and holy ;
The grace of forest charms decayed,
And pastoral melancholy.'

Those deep green grassy knowes of the valley are peculiarly
susceptible of change of light and shade. In the morning
with a blue sky, or with breaks of sunlight through the
fleeting clouds, the green hillsides and the stream smile and
gleam in sympathy with the cheerfulness of heaven.

"But under a grey sky, or at the gloamin', the Yarrow wears a
peculiarly wan aspect a look of sadness. And no valley I
know is more susceptible of sudden change. The spirit of the
air can speedily weave out of the mists that gather up on the
massive hills at the heads of the Meggat and the Talla, a
wide-spreading web of greyish cloud the ' skaum ' of the
sky that casts a gloom over the under green of the hills, and
dims the face of loch and stream in a pensive shadow. The
saddened heart would readily find there fit analogue and
nourishment for its sorrow."

This description is perfect ; but may not the same things be
said of the Tweed, the Ettrick, and the Teviot ; indeed of all the
streams in the Border country ? They have each an individu-
ality of their own, but their general characteristics are the same.

B 2



4 INTRODUCTION.

And long ago when the whole country was covered with wood
the resemblance must have been even more striking than it is
now. Yarrow, especially in its upper reaches, is peculiarly bare,
but in olden times it was well wooded, and must have presented
an aspect as cheerful as any part of the surrounding country.
Why its " houms " should be more " dowie " than those of the
Tweed and Ettrick cannot be satisfactorily accounted for
by the mere grouping of the physical peculiarities. These
are neither in themselves so striking, nor unique, as to
call for any special characterisation. The most pronounced
features of the vale are common to all the tributaries of
the Tweed.

Yet Yarrow has a history of her own. Her spirit is not that of
her sister streams. She sings not less sweetly than they do, but
there is a strange wail running through the music a low
murmur as of some one in pain. How is this to be accounted
for? The most satisfactory explanation is, that "the red strain
in the stream " the cause of all the dool and sorrow is
due to the blood of those who have fallen in mortal combat.
Such incidents as those which are commemorated in "The
Dowie Dens " and " The Douglas Tragedy " must have pro-
duced a deep impression on the minds of the people, and
though they were well accustomed to doughty deeds, yet such a
rare combination of love and sorrow must have awakened the
keenest and deepest feeling. But it may be said that these
tragedies owe much of their power to the art of the poet. In
dealing with such a theme, the poet does not concern himself



INTRODUCTION. 5

about historical accuracy. His function his primary function
is to excite feeling. In these incidents he found a theme
which he could easily adapt to his purpose. The dauntless
courage of the hero in " The Dowie Dens " is exceeded by the
nnconquerable love of the heroine.

" She kissed his cheek, she kaim'd his hair.

She searched his wounds all thorough ;
She kissed him till her lips grew red,

In the dowie houms of Yarrow."

Such ballads were destined to live in the memory and imagina-
tion of the people. They became an important factor in their
daily life. The feeling they inspired was reflected on the scenes
by which they were surrounded. The prevailing tone of " The
Dowie Dens " has affected the whole subsequent literature of
the district. We know that this ballad formed the groundwork
of Hamilton of Bangour's exquisite lyric " Busk ye, busk ye,
my bonny, bonny bride " and this in turn fascinated Words-
worth, whose three poems on Yarrow occupy an unique place
among the many songs this stream has inspired.

The significant and highly important question as to the
"secret" of Yarrow has been discussed in an able article
from the pen of J. B. Selkirk, contributed to Blackwood in
the year 1886. In discussing this question he says: "The
peculiar power exercised by Yarrow on her votaries is very
significant. The result is not only the highest of its kind, but
the whole product is fermented and characterised by a uniform
local colour of pathetic passion which invests everything
that has issued from that mint with a distinctive and unique



6 INTRODUCTION.

individualism. The historical ballad, with one exception, that of
' The Outlaw Murray,' finds no place in Yarrow. ' The Dowie
Dens,' 'The Lament of the Border Widow,' 'The Douglas
Tragedy/ 'Willie's Drowned in Yarrow,' and many others,
grow out of the social conditions and accidents of the
times, and appeal to the ordinary emotions and instincts
of humanity, and these have given the initial pathetic

melancholy to everything that has followed

* . These old pathetic singers have passed away and
left no sign. They have crossed the river of death, and taken
their secret with them. Unnamed and unknown as they are,
they have, however, left behind them a magnetic witchery of
vague and pathetic regret that cannot be shaken off or separated
from the scene of their inspiration. No man of average sensi-
bility ever entered that valley alone without coming to some
extent under the weird fascination and endemic glamour of the
place. Under its mysterious influence poets have been made
and moulded like clay out of a cast." It would thus seem that
the dominant and dominating influence is that exercised by the
early literature of the valley. The "pastoral melancholy" which
impressed Wordsworth so much has had but a small share in
producing that element of " pathetic passion " which permeates
the literature of Yarrow. The mind contemplates the scenery
through the haze of local tradition, and the feeling produced is
largely a result of the action of the subtle law of association
After all it is not so much what the eye sees, as what it brings
with it to the seeing ; and in this case what is brought adds



INTRODUCTION. 7

immensely to the effect. No species of literature, indeed, has
ever more thoroughly taken possession of the imagination than
the Yarrow ballads. It is impossible for any one who has ever
read them to shake himself free from their weird fascination.
The pictures are so perfectly drawn the tragic element is so
intense the contrasts, the deathless hate and unconquerable
love, the blood-hound ferocity and angelic tenderness, so
strikingly represented that there is produced on the mind an
impression which neither lapse of time nor change of circum-
stance can possibly erase. Such tragedies never fail in investing
a locality with a distinctive character ; and in the present case
it may be said that not Nature, but human nature, has made the
" dens " of Yarrow " dowie."

Of the general characteristics of the ballads of Yarrow not
much need be said here, as these are indicated in the notes.
Suffice it to say that "The Song of the Outlaw Murray" is
the only one of a distinctively historical cast : the others
are essentially romantic. Few of them have been preserved
in the form in which they were originally composed. In
some of them, belonging without doubt to a remote period,
we find words and phrases introduced which have a compara-
tively modern origin. Why this should be so is not difficult to
explain. For many generations these ballads were dependant
for their transmission upon the uncertain medium of oral
tradition, and naturally enough the reciters, when they found
that certain words or phrases had become obsolete, replaced
them by others of a modern character, in order that they might



8 INTRODUCTION.

make themselves sufficiently intelligible. Sometimes the critic,
overlooking this fact, has been disposed to dispute the antiquity
of certain ballads, because he happened to discover a word, or
a phrase, that had an unmistakably modern origin. But the
existence of such elements in no way invalidates an otherwise
well-established claim to antiquity. "The desire of the
reciter to be intelligible has been one of the greatest causes of
the deterioration of the ballad. He discarded words that had
become obsolete, and substituted for them expressions taken
from the customs of his own day." " In general, however, the
later reciters," says Sir Walter Scott, "appear to have been far
less desirous to speak the author's words, than to introduce
amendments and new readings of their own, which have always
produced the effect of modernizing, and usually that of vulgar-
izing, the rugged sense and spirit of the antique minstrel.
Thus, undergoing from age to age a gradual process of
alteration and recomposition, our popular and oral minstrelsy
has lost in a great measure its original appearance; and the
strong touches by which it was originally characterised have
been generally smoothed down and destroyed by a process
similar to that by which a coin, passing from hand to hand,
loses in circulation all the finer marks of the impress."

The Yarrow ballads have been subjected to the same in-
fluences. Not only has the phraseology been changed ; but
it has happened in some instances that stray verses from other
ballads have become incorporated in a composition with which
they have little or no affinity.



INTRODUCTION. 9

On the literary style of these ballads it is unnecessary to
remark. The ancient bard was generally satisfied with a
rude and careless form of expression, the very simplicity of
the ballad stanza carrying with it a strong temptation to loose
and trivial composition. But these ballads possess a deep
interest for the student of literature, not only on account of the
deeds they commemorate, but more especially on the ground
that they afford a glimpse of the "national music in its cradle."
We see here the first attempts at the formation of those tuneful
sounds with which she was afterwards to charm posterity.
They form a distinct and separate phase of literary history
and achievement.

The poetical literature of Yarrow, subsequent to the ballad
period, is at once varied in quality and extensive in quantity.
Allan Ramsay was the first to take up the strain of the ancient
minstrels, and his well-known songs "The Rose of Yarrow" and
" Mary Scott" are pervaded by a tender feeling which, in some
passages, swells into pathos. At the same time it may be justly
remarked that his songs are more indebted to the theme for the
interest they possess, than to any poetical qualities they display.
Hogg was not far wrong when he said :

" Redoubted Ramsay's peasant skill,
Flung some strained notes along the hill;
His was some lyre from lady's hall,
And not the mountain harp at all."

The first poet who was destined to embalm the romance of
Yarrow in imperishable verse was Hamilton of Bangour. His
name and his fame as a poet will ever be associated with his



io INTRODUCTION.

exquisite lyric "The Braes of Yarrow." His other poems and
songs have well nigh passed into oblivion ; but as long as
Yarrow has charms for the poetic mind this poem will never
fail in captivating the imagination. The stanzas are not all of
equal merit, but take it as a whole there are few finer things in
the poetical literature of the country. The wail of the old
ballads resounds through its rhythmic cadences, like the low
weird " sough " of the wind among the autumn leaves of the
forest. The witching spell of this song has been thrown over
the whole subsequent literature of Yarrow, as the cloud, red-
tinged by the rays of the setting sun, casts a purple hue upon the
myriad streams that glint and gleam as they roll onward to the
sea. Wordsworth, Scott, Hogg, and many others, have felt
the power of its entrancing and bewitching strain, and had
Hamilton written nothing else he would still have been entitled
to a place among the immortals. If Spenser may be designated
" the poet's poet," Hamilton's " Braes of Yarrow " may be
regarded as the mystic font in which many a Yarrow minstrel
has received the baptism of the Muses.

It is unnecessary to enter fully into the merits of the many
songs which, within comparatively recent times, have garlanded
the braes of Yarrow with wreaths of immortal melody. Suffice
it to say that though Yarrow has occasioned more songs than
almost any other stream in the world, her power to confer a kind
of plenary inspiration does not seem to be on the wane.
J. B. Selkirk and Professor Veitch, Alexander Anderson and
Principal Shairp, Andrew Lang and Professor Blackie are



INTRODUCTION. u

among the more recent of her poets, and though they differ
widely in the manner in which they sing of the love and
sorrow so inalienably associated with the vale, yet the feeling
produced in the mind is that they are members of the same
choir, each singing the part for which he is best fitted, and
every note adding to the perfection of the symphony. And
though the river still flows on as sweetly and softly as of yore,
we seem to hear in its liquid melody a note which owns no
material origin, a strain of imaginative feeling, pathetic and
yet sublime, now mingles, and shall ever mingle, with the music
of the stream.



THE DOWIE DENS OF YARROW.



* I A HIS beautiful and pathetic ballad has attained an almost
J- world-wide popularity. It has inspired many of the
finest songs of which Yarrow is the theme, and has done more
to enshrine the vale with a halo of romance than all other
influences combined. Had " The Dowie Dens " never been
sung or written the literary history of Yarrow might have been
as meagre as that of many an all but nameless river. From
this fountain of poetic inspiration myriad streams have issued to
charm the world with their pensive sweetness and ideal beauty.
The poesy of ancient Greece is not more closely related to the
poetry of Homer or of English verse to the inspiring strains of
Chaucer, than the poetical literature of Yarrow to " The Dowie
Dens." Hamilton of Bangour found in this ballad the ground
work of his beautiful poem, " The Braes of Yarrow," a poem
which had evidently touched a deep chord in Wordsworth's
heart, and had much to do in exciting the keen interest he
displayed in the poetical traditions of the valley. The incident



14 THE DOWIE DENS OF YARROW.

of the ballad may be said to have given a distinctive character
to the district. There is nothing about the hills and glens which
stretch out and up from the banks of the river to awaken a
feeling of sadness in the mind of the spectator. Indeed there
are many places in Scotland to which the term " dowie " might
be more fitly applied ; but all the associations in large part
due to this tragedy are plaintive and melancholy. This, and
similar tragedies, must have produced a deep and lasting
impression on the popular mind, and made those gladsome
hills and fairy glens wear a melancholy aspect. The prevailing
strain of this ballad furnishes the key note to the whole poetical
literature of the district. There is an undertone of sorrow
running through it, like the all but inaudible murmur of some
hidden stream.

The combat which is here so felicitously described was
betwixt a Scott of Tushielaw, and his brother-in-law, a Scott of
Thirlestane, in which the latter was mortally wounded. The
dispute was about some lands which old Tushielaw conveyed,
or intended to convey, to his daughter. Professor Aytoun, in
his book on The Ballads of Scotland expresses the opinion