THE LASS OF CESSNOCK BANKS She's stately like yon youthful ash, That grows the cowslip braes between, She's spotless like the flow'ring thorn, An' she has twa sparkling roguish een. Her looks are like the vernal May, Her hair is like the curling mist, That climbs the mountain-sides at e'en, Her forehead's like the show'ry bow, Her cheeks are like yon crimson gem, Just opening on its thorny stem; An' she has twa sparkling roguish een. Her bosom's1 like the nightly snow, While hid the murm'ring streamlets flow; 1 Emendation (by Scott Douglas) of teeth are, which comes in the next verse but one. The correction disturbs the order of the description, however. Her lips are like yon cherries ripe, That sunny walls from Boreas screen; Her teeth are like a flock of sheep, Her breath is like the fragrant breeze, Her voice is like the ev'ning thrush, That sings on Cessnock banks unseen, But it's not her air, her form, her face, ; Song-Bonie Peggy Alison.1 Tune—“The Braes o' Balquhidder." Chor.-And I'll kiss thee yet, yet, 1 Spoken of by Burns as "juvenile.' Mr Scott Douglas plausibly conjectures that both Peggy, in this piece, and Mary Morison, in the next, are really Ellison, or Alison, Begbie. The first verse is not in Johnson's copy (Museum ii. 1788), and was first given by Cromek. MARY MORISON Ilk care and fear, when thou art near throne And I'll kiss thee yet, yet, &c. When in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, And I'll kiss thee yet, yet, &c. And by thy een sae bonie blue, And I'll kiss thee yet, yet, &c. Song-Mary Morison.1 O MARY, at thy window be, It is the wish'd, the trysted hour! Yestreen, when to the trembling string To thee my fancy took its wing, I sat, but neither heard nor saw: 1 On Mr Scott Douglas's hypothesis this song again refers to Miss Begbie. The metre is that which the French ballade introduced into old Scotch poetry, with a modern freedom from b turmoil. the recurrence of identical rhymes. By adding an envoy, and adhering to the same rhymes, the song would ap pear as a regular ballade. Tho' this was fair, and that was braw,* Oh, Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, Winter: A Dirge.1 THE wintry west extends his blast, Or the stormy north sends driving forth The blinding sleet and snaw: While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down, And roars frae bank to brae ; And bird and beast in covert rest, And pass the heartless day. "The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,' Let others fear, to me more dear The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, A PRAYER Thou Power Supreme whose mighty scheme Here firm I rest; they must be best, Then all I want-O do Thou grant A Prayer under the pressure of violent O THOU Great Being! what Thou art, Yet sure I am, that known to Thee Thy creature here before Thee stands, Yet sure those ills that wring my soul Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act O, free my weary eyes from tears, But, if I must afflicted be, To suit some wise design, Then man my soul with firm resolves, 1 This Burns included in his second or Edinburgh edition of 1787. Burns says that, in a New Year's frolic, immediately following on the com position of this Prayer, his store of flax was burned. The copy in the Common-place Book has some variants of little consequence. |