How I wad mourn, when it was torn

By autumn wild, and winter rude!
But I wad sing on wanton wing,

When youthfu' May its bloom renewed.

[The first stanza of this exquisite little song was published by Herd in 1776," the thought is," writes Burns, "inexpressibly beautiful; and quite, so far as I know, original. I have often tried to eke out a stanza to it, but in vain." The poet nevertheless, after balancing himself in his elbow chair, and musing for five minutes, produced the other verse; which, though he thought little of, is only inferior to the original.

From Herd's MSS Sir Walter Scott printed in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, a different copy of the Song, which is here subjoined.

O gin my love were yon red rose,

That grows upon the castle wa',
And I mysell a drap of dew,

Down on that red rose I wad fa'.
O my loves bonny, bonny, bonny;
My loves bonny, and fair to see;
Whene'er I look on her weel-far'd face,
She looks and smiles again to me.

O gin my love were a pickle of wheat,
And growing upon yon lily lee,

And I mysell a bonny wee bird

Awa' wi' that pickle o' wheat I wad flee.

O my loves bonny, &c.

O gin my love were a coffer o' gowd,
And I the keeper of the key,

I wad open the kist whene'er I list,
And in that coffer I wad be.

O my loves bonny, &c.

Allan Cunningham has given from tradition two additional verses, in which the lover wishes his lady first a "leek," and next a "fragrant gean," both certainly modern fabrications. And that curious finder of old verse, Mr. Peter Buchan, has presented the ingenious

Mr. Motherwell of Glasgow, with "a perfect copy of the old song as current in the north, and recovered by him," for which all true antiquaries stand his debtor, if any one of them could for a moment believe the silly additions Mr. Buchan has made to Herd's beautiful fragment genuine. Could not Mr. Buchan procure the original of "Tam Glen," somewhere near Aberdeen, and oblige that learned gentleman, who's

-grown so weel acquent wi' Buchan

And ither chaps,

The weans haud out their fingers laughin
And pouk his hips.

See MOTHERWELL, BUCHAN, and Hooo's Edition of Burns,

TALK NOT OF LOVE,

CLARINDA,

Part vi. p. 103.]

Talk not of love it gives me pain,
For love has been my foe;
He bound me with an iron chain,
And plunged me deep in woe.
But friendship's pure and lasting joys,
My heart was form'd to prove,

There, welcome win, and wear the prize,

But never talk of love.

Your friendship much can make me blest,

O why that bliss destroy!

Why urge the only one request

You know I will deny!

Your thought, if love must harbour there,
Conceal it in that thought:

Nor cause me from my bosom tear
The very friend I sought.

[These verses are printed in the second volume of Johnson's Mus. Mus. 1788, headed "By a Lady," and with the signature M. attached to them. They are well known to have been the composition (save the last four lines, which are by Burns himself) of Mrs. M'Lehose, the celebrated Clarinda of the poet, to whom he addressed in the gaiety of his heart the letters signed Sylvander, full of the flames and darts found in the burlesque pastorals of Tay, and the sighs and vows of the Grub-street school of writers. The lady is still alive in Edinburgh, honoured by a wide circle of relations and friends.]

THE LASS OF BALLOCHMYLE.

ROBERT BURNS.

Born 1759-Died 1795.

'Twas even-the dewy fields were green,
On every blade the pearls hang,
The zephyr wanton'd round the bean,
And bore its fragrant sweets alang :
In ev'ry glen the mavis sang,

All nature listening seem'd the while,
Except where greenwood echoes rang,
Amang the braes o' Ballochmyle.

With careless step I onward stray'd,
My heart rejoic'd in nature's joy,
When musing in a lonely glade,

A maiden fair I chanc'd to spy ;
Her look was like the morning's eye,
Her hair like nature's vernal smile,
Perfection whisper'd, passing by,
Behold the lass o' Ballochmyle!

Fair is the morn in flow'ry May,
And sweet is night in autumn mild;
When roving thro' the garden gay,
Or wand'ring in the lonely wild :
But woman, nature's darling child!
There all her charms she does compile;
Even there her other works are foil'd
By the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle.

O, had she been a country maid,

And I the happy country swain, Tho' shelter'd in the lowest shade

That ever rose on Scotland's plain, Thro' weary winter's wind and rain With joy, with rapture, I would toil; And nightly to my bosom strain

The bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle.

Then pride might climb the slipp'ry steep, Where fame and honours lofty shine; And thirst of gold might tempt the deep, Or downward seek the Indian mine;

Give me the cot below the pine,

To tend the flocks, or till the soil, And ev'ry day have joys divine,

With the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle.

[This is one of the most beautiful songs in the language-the heroine was a Miss Alexander of Ballochmyle in Ayrshire.

In the spring of the year 1786, the poet had roved out mid his favourite haunts "to view nature in all the gaiety of the vernal year. The evening sun was flaming over the distant western hills, not a breath stirred the crimson opening blossom, or the verdant spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for a poetic heart;" whilst he was thus half lost in meditation, "I spied," he continues in his letter to the lady, "one of the fairest pieces of nature's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape, or met a poet's eye.-What an hour of inspiration for a poet."

On his return home he composed the above song, and enclosed it in a very laboured letter a few months after to the young lady. Miss Alexander never acknowledged receiving it, and Burns it is well known bitterly resented her silence.

Currie and Lockhart have defended the conduct of Miss Alexander, the latter writes that the song is "conceived in a strain of luxurious fervour, which certainly, coming from a man of Burns's station and character, must have sounded very strangely in a delicate maiden's ear." (Life. 8vo. p. 128.) This remark of Mr. Lockhart's has much similarity to Dr. Currie's; but if these excellent biographers could defend the silence of Miss Alexander, why did they not account for her after conduct, when the poet's head was in the grave, the lady then carried the song about wherever she went, and to her last hour regarded it as an heir-loom in the house of Alexander. (Burns' Works, iv. p. 48.)

Mr. Cunningham has made no defence for the lady-indeed it is difficult to defend her silence with any justice. Though the works of the poet were then published, he was little known, and the notice of a family like the Alexanders, would have been of great benefit, in lifting him from the low rank in which he was born. A lady in the same part of the country, Mrs. General Stewart, of Stair and Afton-of equal or greater opulence and station than the Alexanders, had already noticed him, and Burns was always thirsting for distinction, his great desire, he wrote to Dr. Moore, was to be thought a very clever fellow.

Mrs. Dunlop, one of Burns' best friends, viewed the circumstance in the same light as Dr. Currie and Lockhart have done. The poet was complaining before the lady of Miss Alexander's coldness and neglect, "How could you," said Mrs. Dunlop, "expect a lady to acknowledge a poem written so freely and so warmly." Burns rose up from where he was sitting, and striking the shoulder of Major Dunlop, the lady's son, cried, "Major, you shall be umpire. When a lady dresses herself in such a manner as Miss Willie Alexander does,