Then man my soul wth firm resolves to bear and not repine ! "]

Though fickle Fortune has deceiv'd me,
She promis'd fair, and perform'd but ill ;

Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav'd me,*
Yet I bear a heart shall support me still. —

I'll act with prudence, as far's I'm able,

But if success I must never find ;
Then come misfortune, I bid thee welcome !

I'll meet thee with an undaunted mind.

* This line, as originally written (see song, " I dream'd I lay," &c., page 216,
Vol. I.), stands thus : —

" Of many a joy and hope bereaved me ; "

but the youthful poet, in recording it in his Commonplace Book, after having
been jilted by a belle fille, and losing all his little " wealth " in an attempt to start
in business at Irvine, made the very natural alteration shewn in the test. " This
fragment," he says, " was an extempore, under the pressure of a very heavy
train of misfortunes, which, indeed, threatened to undo me altogether; and
though the weather has brightened up a little with me, yet there has always
been since, a tempest brewing round me, in the grim sky of futurity, which I
pretty plainly see will sometime or other — perhaps ere long — overwhelm me,
and drive me into some doleful dell, to pine in solitary, squalid wretchedness."
In most editions of the poet, these two verses are preceded by four lines,
commencing, "When clouds in skies do come together," which are set down
as a part of this "Fragment; " but the poet very distinctly says that these four
lines are part of a piece " in imitation of an old Scots song, well known among
the country ingle-sides. — I cannot tell the name either of the song or the tune,
but I shall here set down one verse to mark the song and tune I mean, and
likewise as a debt I owe to the author, as the repeating of that verse has lighted
up my flame a thousand times." — (See note to song, " The noble Maxwells," page
304, Vol. I.)



( 252 )



TRAGIC FRAGMENT.

[We are indebted to Cromek for preserving this interesting attempt at
dramatic writing, together with the prose note which accompanies it. It does
not form part of the poet's first Commonplace Book, as usually printed ; or, if it
really is a portion of those early memoranda, it has got unaccountably discon-
nected therefrom; and if the MS. still exists, the sooner this unplaced piece is
restored to its connection the better. The stray note which we refer to is as
follows: — "In my early years nothing less would serve me than courting the
tragic muse. I was, I think, about eighteen or nineteen when I sketched the
outlines of a tragedy forsooth ! but the bursting of a cloud of family misfortunes,
which had for some time threatened us, prevented my farther progress. In those
days I never wrote down any thing; so, except a speech or two. the whole has
escaped my memory. The above, which I most distinctly remember, was an
exclamation from a great character — great in occasional instances of generosity,
and daring at times in villanies. Ho is supposed to meet with a child of misery,
and exclaims to himself, as in the words of the fragment, —

' With tears indignant I behold th' oppressor
Eejoicing in the lionest man's destruction.'"
Here we have a glance at " the factor, who sat for the picture I have drawn of
one in my tale of the Tica Dogs. — My indignation yet boils at the recollection of
the scoundrel factor's insolent threatening letters, which used to set us all in
tears."

The five concluding lines of this fragment are marked off by the poet as
having been "added at a later period of life." They are quite Byrmtk, in so far
as we discern the poet himself, as i'ha jierson of the drama who is speaking.

There is a passage in the early memoranda, under date, March, 1784, which
bears strong afBuity to the pleadings for the vagabond in this fragment : —
" Even you, ye helpless crew. I pity you ;
Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity!"
"I have often courted the acquaintance of that part of mankind commonly
known by the ordinary phrase of ' hlackguards.' Though disgraced by follies,
nay, sometimes stained with guilt, I have yet found among them, in not a few
instances, some of the noblest virtues, magnanimity, generosity, disinterested
friendship, and even Modesty."]

' All devil as I am, a damned wretch,

A harden'd, stuljboru, unrepenting- villain.

Still my heart melts at human wretchedness ;

And with sincere tho' nnavailinp; sighs,

I view the helpless children of distress.

With tears indignant 1 behold th' oppressor

Eejoicing in the honest man's destruction,

Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime.

Even you, ye helpless crew, I pity you!

Ye, whom the seemiug good think sin to pity;

Ye poor, despis'd, abaudon'd vagabonds,

Whom vice, as usual, has turn'd o'er to ruin.

— ! but for kind, tho' ill-i-equited friends,

I had been di-iven forth, like you, forlorn.

The most detested, worthless wretch among you !



( 253 )

[O injured God ! Thy goodness has endow'd me

With talents passing most of my compeers,

Which I in just proportion have abused

As far surpassing other common villains,

As Thou in natural parts hadst given me more.']



MONTGOMERIE'S PEGGY.

[At Whitsunday, 1777, when the poet had passed into his nineteenth year,
the Bumess family removed from Mount Oliphant to the farm of Lochlea, in
the parish of Tarbolton. In his autobiography he thus remarlis regarding this
period: — "At the plow, scythe .or reap-hoolv, I feared no competitor, and thus
I set absolute want at defiance ; and as I never cared farther for my labours
than while I was in actual exercise, I spent the evenings in the way after my
own heart." He tells us that, besides being in the secret of half the loves of the
parish of Tarbolton, and using his goose-feather to forward the love-adventures
of his compeers as well as his own, he engaged in an extensive correspondence
with old school-fellows and others, in order to improve himself in literary com-
position, keeping copies of any of his own letters that pleased him.

The only letters of these days, that have been printed from copies found
among his papers after his death, are the tour love-letters, given by Currie in his

Hrst edition, addressed to "E , written about the year 1780." Motherwell

observes of them: "They are, in fact, the only sensible love-letters we have
ever seen ; yet they have an air of task-work and constraint about them that is
far from natural." In the passage of the poet's Commonplace Book which
records the verses in the text, he tells us that Montgomerie's Perjoy was his
deity for six or eight months, and that he began to lay siege to her merely from
a vanity of she-\ving his parts in courtship, particularly his abilities at a billet-
iloiix ; but eventually he battered himself into a warm affection for her, and was
dreadfully disconcerted when, in the sequel, she told him that her fortress had
for some time been the lawful property of another. It " cost him some heart-
aches to get rid of the affair."

Several of the poet's editors and annotators, by connecting the information
thus derived from separate sources, had assimied the identity of Montgomerie's
Peggy with the fair one to whom he addressed the four letters referred to;
Cromek especially, observing that both in the letters and in the note relating to
Montgomerie's Peggy, the poet speaks of the fair one as " having been bred in a
style of life rather elegant," points out in a foot-note that the passage on Mont-
gomerie's Peggy " explains the love-letters to Peggy." This theory was overturned
about the year 1848, by information from the poet's sister (Mrs. Begg), com-
municated to Gapt. Charles Cray and others. From some memoranda, obligingly
sent to the present writer by Mrs. Begg's daughter, Agnes, dated from Bridge-
house, Ayr, 22nd February, 1850, the following quotation on the present sub-
ject may be interesting : — " How Mr. D runs into the mistake of saying that

Mrs. Begg, in her account of EiUson Begbie, represents her as the same with
Montgomerie's Peggy, is to me incomprehensible: she has ever said the very
reverse : they were as distinct as two women with two souls can be. Peggy
was housekeeper with Archibald Montgomery, Esq., of Coilsfleld. Burns and
she had met frequently at Tarbolton Mill— the ' Willie's Mill ' of Dr. Hornbook :
they sat in the same church, and had a good deal of intercourse ; but she was
engaged to another before ever they met; so, on her part, it was nothing but
amusement, and on Burns' part, from the way he speaks of it, little more."]

Altho' my bed were in yon muir,
Amang the heather, in my plaidie ;

Yet happy, happy would I be

Had I my dear Montgomerie's Peggy.



( 254 )

When o'er the hill beat surly storms,
And winter nights were dark and rainy,

I'd seek some dell, and in my arms
I'd shelter dear Montgomerie's Peggy.

Were I a baron proud and high,

And horse and servants waiting ready ;

Then a' 'twad gie o' joy to me, —
The sharin't with Montgomerie's Peggy.



THE LASS OF CESSNOCK BANKS.

A SONG OF SIMILIES.

Tune — If he be a Batcher neat and trim.

[The head-note to the preceding song will serve to illustrate this remarkable
lyric, of which there are two versions extant — one picked up byCromek "from
the oral communication of a lady residing in Glasgow, wliom the bartl, in early
life, affectionately admired," and the other printed (in Pickering's edition, 1839)
" from the poet's own MS.," in which are given two additional verses of great
beauty, here marked off by brackets. In the text, we mainly adhere to the latter
version, giving Cromek's variations in a foot-note.

Reference has already been made, at pages 87 and 131 of the present volume,
to Ellison BriGBlE, who was the heroine of this Sowj of Similies, to whom also
the four love-letters before referred to were addressed. The real date of these
was 17S1, as is proved by a reference in the last of them, to his intended " re-
moval, in a few days, a "little farther off" — namely to Irvine, to learn the trade
of flax-dressing. From the memoranda of Mrs. Begg, alluded to in the note to
Montgomerie's Peggy, we quote as follows regarding the subject of the present
song:— "The beUe-fiUe who caused the poet's melancholy at Irvine, was the
aforesaid EUison Begbie, for whom he evidently had a most sincere respect, but
she declined a nearer connection than friendship with him, for reasons known
only to themselves; but, where the fair one was amiable and prudent, the
reasons may easily be imagined. She married some years after." Ellison
Begbie, we are informed, was the daughter of a small farmer in the parish of
GaTstoiL In 1781, she was servant with a family on the banks of the Cessnock
Water, about two miles from Lochlea: she was so superior to ordinai-j' girls of
her station, that Burns, even after he had seen the belles of Edinburgh, acknow-
ledged to his mother and sisters, that of all the women he had ever seriously
admired, Ellison was the one most likely to have formed an agreeable com-
panion to him for life. She was not, in the strict sense of the term, a beauty,
but there was a fascination about her that attracted the admiration of the young
men of her neighbourhood, and the poet in particular. Cromek traced her out,
and conversed with her in Glasgow. It is a pity that nothing of her subsequent
history is known.]

On Cessnock banks a lassie dwells ;

Could I describe her shape and mein !
Our lasses a' she far excels, —

An' she has twa si)arkling rogueish een.



( 255 )

She's sweeter than the morning dawn
When rising Phoebus first is seen,

And dew-drops twinkle o'er the lawn, —
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish een.

She's stately, like yon youthful ash
That grows the cowslip braes between,

And drinks the stream with vigour fresh, —
An' she has twa sparkUng rogueish een.

She's spotless, like the flow'ring thorn

With flow'rs so white and leaves so green,

When purest in the dewy morn, —

An' she has twa sparkUng rogueish een.

Her looks are like the vernal May,
When ev'ning Phoebus shines serene,

While birds rejoice on every spray, —
An' she has twa sparkUng rogueish een.

Her hair is Uke the curling mist

That cUmbs the mountain-sides at e'en,

When flow'r-reviving rains are past, —
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish een.

Her forehead's Hke the show'ry bow.
When gleammg sunbeams intervene.

And gild the distant mountain's brow, —
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish een.

[Her cheeks are like yon crimson gem,
The pride of all the flowery scene,

Just opening on its thorny stem, —

An' she has twa sparkling rogueish een.]

Her Ups are like yon cherries ripe.
That sunny waUs from Boreas screen ;

They tempt the taste and charm the sight, —
An' she has twa sparkUng rogueish een.



( 256 )

Her teeth are like a flock of slieep,
With fleeces newly washen clean,

That slowly mount the rising steep, —
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish een.

Her breath is Mke the fragrant breeze
That gently stirs the blossom'd bean.

When Phoebus sinks behind the seas,—
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish een.

[Her bosom's like the nightly snow
When pale the morning rises keen.

While hid the murmuring streamlets flow, —
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish een.]

Her voice is like the ev'uiug thrush
That sings on Cessnock banks unseen,

While his mate sits nestling in the bush, —
An' she has twa sparkling rogueish een.

But it's not her air, her form, her face,
Tho' matching beauty's fabled queen ;

'Tis the mind that shines in ev'ry grace, —
And chiefly in her rogueish een.*



* The flrst stanza in Cromek's version is as follows : —
"On Cessnock banks there lives a lass, —
Could I describe her shape and mein —
The graces of her weel-fam-'d face,
And the glaucin' of her sparklin' een."
Cromek's fifth verse shews the following variation, the closing line being
adhered to throughout the song: —

" Her looks are like the sportive lamb —

When flow'ry May adorns the scene —

That wantons round its bleating dam, —

And she"s twa glancin', sparklin' een.

The present editor has, without hesitation, adopted a transposition of one or

two of the stanzas, and, in verse third from the end, he has corrected an obvious

blunder, by altering a single word: this, ho foels certain, every reader of taste

will accept as an improved reading. Tho poet, in the flrst Ave stanzas, describes

the general tout ensemble of his mistress; in the rest of tho song, ho paints each

of her charms in detail. Bogitming with the hair of her head, and gradually

descending, he devotes a whole stanza to each particular grace — the forehead —

tlie cheeks — the lips — the teeth — the breath — the bosom — the voice, and, lastly,

"the mind that shines in every grace." We consider this lovely Song of Similies

bus not hitherto received the attention its excellence deserves. Verily, it is no

boyish production.



( 257 )

MY FATHER WAS A FARMER.

Tune — The Weaver and his Shuttle, 0.

[" The following song," says the poet In his Scrap Book, under date, April,
178-1, " is a wild rhapsody, miserably deficient in versification ; but as the senti-
ments are the genuine feelings of my heart, for that reason I have a particular
pleasure in conning it over." This remark leads us to infer that it must have
been a production of earlier years. It is not easy to decide whether its garnered
philosophy was I'eoorded before or after the year 17S1, when the collapse of his
Irvine adventure had added much to his stock of experience of human life and
human folly. The fifth stanza finely brings out the proud vaunt he so eloquently
introduced in his Edinburgh Dedication — "I was bred to the plough, and am
independent ! "]

My father was a farmer

Upoii the Cavrick border, O,
And carefully he bred me

In decency and order, O ;
He bade me act a manly part,

Though I had ne'er a farthing, ;
For without an honest manly heart,

No man was worth regarding, 0.

Then out into the world at length

My course I did determine, O ;
Tho' to be rich was not my wish.

Yet to be great was charming, ;
My talents they were not the worst,

Nor yet my education, :
Resolv'd was I, at least to try,

To mend my situation, 0.

In many a way, and vain essay,

I courted fortune's favour, 0;
Some cause unseen still stept between,

To frustrate each endeavour, O :
Sometimes by foes I was o'erpower'd ;

Sometimes by friends forsaken, O ;
And when my hope was at the top,

I still was worst mistaken, O.

Then sore harass'd, and tir'd at last,
With fortune's vain delusion, 0,

I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams,
And came to this conclusion, :



( 258 )

The past was bad, and the future hid ;

Its good or ill untried, O ;
But the present hour was in my pow'r,

And so I would enjoy it, 0.

No help, nor hope, nor view had I,

Nor person to befriend me, O ;
So I must toil and sweat and broil.

And labour to sustain me, :
To plough and sow, and reap and mow,

My father bred me early, O ;
For one, he said, to labour bred.

Was a match for fortune fairly, 0.

Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor,

Thro' life I'm doom'd to wander, O,
Till down my weary bones I lay

In everlasting slumber, :
No view nor care, but shun whate'er

Might breed me pain and sorrow, O ;
I live to-day as well's I may,

Regardless of to-morrow, O.

But .cheerful still, I am as well,

As a monarch in a palace, O,
Tho' fortune's frown still hunts me down,

With all her wonted malice, :
I make indeed my daily bread.

But ne'er can make it farther, ;
But as daily bread is all I need,

I do not much regard her, O.

When sometimes by my labour I

Can earn a little money, O,
Some unforseen misfortune still

Comes gen'rally upon me, 0, —
Mischance, mistake, or by neglect,

Or my good-natur'd folly, O, —
But come what will, I've sworn it still,

I'll ne'er be melancholy, O.



( 259 )

All you who follow wealth and power

With unremitting ardour, O,
The more in this you look for bliss,

You leave your view the farther, :
Had you the wealth Potosi boasts,

Or nations to adore you, O,
A cheerful, honest-hearted clown

I will prefer before you, O.



ONE NIGHT AS I DID WANDER.
Tune — John Anderson^ my jo.

[This fragment, introduced in his Scrap Book under date, May, 1785, seems to
have been intended as the starting note of a solemn lyric, in the key of " Man
was made to mourn."]

One night as I did wander.

When corn begins to shoot,
I sat me down to ponder.

Upon an auld tree root :
Auld Aire ran on before me,

And bicker'd to the seas,
A cushat crooded o'er me,

That echoed through the braes.



THE MAUCHLINE LADY.

Tune — / had a horse^ and I had nae mair.

[This is, in truth, a pretty close parody of one of the stanzas of a very free
song, beginning — "I had a horse, and I had nae mair." It seems to have a
reference to the entrapping of his heart by Jean Armour.]

When first I came to Stewart Kyle,

My mind it was na steady ;
Where'er I gaed, wherever I rade,

A mistress still I had aye :
But when I came roun' by Mauchline town,

Not dreadin' onie body,
My heart was caught before I thought —

And by a Mauchline lady.



( 260 )

RANTIN', ROVIN' ROBIN.
Tune — Dcdntie Davie.

[There are few of Burns' songs more popular than this, which is sung in every
quarter of the globe, on each recurrence of the day referred to in the second
stanza. Currie took notice of the tradition recorded in the same verse, that on
the night of the poet's birth a portion of the auld clay higrjin, erected by William
Bums, with his own hands, was blown in by " a blast of Jau'war' win'." It has
been often noticed that hurricanes of wind are frequent in this country about the
season of Burns' anniversary, and the extraordinary rough state of the weather
on the centenary night of 1859 must be well remembered by many.

The reader will observe that the air to which the poet intended these lively
verses to be sung, is that of " Dainty Davie." We cannot say who it was that
first set aside that very suitable tune and adapted the words to the air now almost
universally allied to them, namely — gin ye were dead, giideman. In order to
effect this it became necessary to make a very silly alteration of the poet's own
chorus verse, thus: —

" Robin was a rovin' boy,

A rantin' rovin', rantin' rovin' ;
Eobin was a rovin' boy,
A rantin', rovin' Robin ! "]

There was a lad was born in Kyle,
But whatna day o' whatna style,
I doubt it's hardly worth the while.
To be sae nice wi' Robin.

CHORUS.

Rolin was a rovM boy —

Rantin! rovin^^ rantin^ rovin —

Robin was a rovin^ boy —
Rantin^ rovirC Robin !

Our monarch's hindmost year but ane
Was five-and-twenty days begun,
'Twas then a blast o' Jan'war' win'
Blew hansel in on Robin.

Robin was, 4'C.

The gossip keekit in his loof,
Quo' scho, ' Wha lives will see the proof.
This waly boy will be nae coof,
I think we'll ca' him Robin.
Robin was, 4c.



( 201 )

' He'll hae misfortunes great and sma'.
But ay a heart aboon them a' ;
He'll be, a credit 'till us a',
We'll a' be proud o' Robiu.

Robin was, ^c.

' But sure as three times three mak' uiue,
I see by ilka score and line,
This chap will dearly like our kin',
So leeze me on thee, Robin.
Robin was, (J-c.

' Gude faith/ quo' scho, ' I doubt you gar,
The bonie lasses lie aspar ;
But twenty fauts ye may hae waur.
So blessin's on thee, Robin ! '
Robin tvas, ^'C.



ELEGY

ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT RUISSEAUX.

[It has been suggested that these three verses were originally intended by Burns
to take the place of the sublime composition called "The Bard's Epitaph,"
â– which so litly closed his Kilmarnock volume ; and that when his muse took that
higher flight he threw aside the humorous lines here printed from the RcUques.
The elegy is a most faithful piece of portrait-painting nevertheless, and could be
ill-spared from a collection of the author's poems. Kuisseaux, which is the
French for rivulets, is a play on the name Burns, which he would be led to
adopt from its resemblance to that of the celebrated Jean Jacques Kousseau, to
whose character he might fancy his own bore some likeness.

In the poet's Commonplace Book are found some "Egotisms from my own
sensations," written about the time this elegy was composed, in which he says,
" I sometimes think the character of a certain great man I have read of some-
where is very much apropos to myself — that he was a compound of great talents
and great folly. N.B. — T'o try it' I can discover the causes of this wretched
inflrmitj, and, if possible, to mend it." In another portion of his notes he writes
approvingly of "the jovial lads who have too much fire and spirit to have any
settled rule of action, and without much deliberation follow the strong impulses
of nature; and who, with a happy sweetness of natural temper, and a cheerful
vacancy of thought, steal through life in poverty and obscurity : and such are
generally those whose heads are capable of all the towerings of genius, and whose
hearts are warmed with all the deUcacy of feeling."]

Now Robin lies in his last lair,

He'll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair,

Cauld poverty, wi' hun^y stare,

Nae mair shall fear him ;
Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care,

E'er mair come near him.



( 262 )

To tell the truth, they seldom fash't him,
Except the moment that they crush't him ;
For sune as chance or fate had hush't 'em-

Tho' e'er sae short —
Then wi' a rhyme or song he lash't 'em,

And thought it sport.

Tho' he was bred to kintra wark,

And counted was baith wight and stark,

Yet that was never Robin's mark

To mak' a man ;
But tell him he was learn'd and dark —

Ye roos'd him then !



THIRD EPISTLE TO J. LAPRAIK.

September IZth, 1785.

[In Vol. I, at pages 104 and 109, the reader will find the poet's first and second
epistles to this old rhymster (for the title of Bard he had no claim to.) The date
of the present poem is about five months subsequent to that of the two prior
ones. The last verse records the fact that the harvest of 178-5 was late and
stormy, and the first verse of the nest poem — the Epistle to M'Math, dated only
four days later, records the same fact. Both Cunningham and Chambers
blunder in their notes to this poem, by stating that Lapraik printed this epistle
in the volume of his own poems in 1788. Cromek printed it from a copy
preserved by the author, and found among the " sweepings of his study,"
which Carrie and his advisers had deemed unworthy of publication.]

GuDE speed an' furder to you Johnie !