In vain does memory renew The hours once ting'd in transport's dye : No cold approach, no alter'd mien, He made me blest-and broke my heart! The tears I shed must ever fall. [The four first lines of the last stanza are by Burns.] CHEROKEE INDIAN DEATH SONG. ANNE HUNTER. Born 1742-Died 1825. The sun sets in night, and the stars shun the day, But glory remains when their lights fade away. Begin, ye tormentors; your threats are in vain, For the son of Alknomook will never complain. Remember the arrows he shot from his bow; Remember the wood where in ambush we lay, And the scalps which we bore from your nation away. I go to the land where my father is gone : [Wife of the celebrated John Hunter, and sister to Sir Everard Home.] O GIN MY LOVE WERE YON RED ROSE. O gin my love were yon red rose, Into her bonnie breast to fa'! Oh, there beyond expression blest, O were my love yon lilac fair, Wi' purple blossoms to the spring; How I wad mourn, when it was torn 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', Down on that red rose I wad fa'. O gin my love were a pickle of wheat, 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, I wad open the kist whene'er I list, 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 See MOTHERWELL, BUCHAN, and HOGG's Edition of Burns, TALK NOT OF LOVE. CLARINDA. Part vi. p. 103.] Talk not of love it gives me pain, 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, Nor cause me from my bosom tear The very [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 1796. 'Twas even-the dewy fields were green, All nature listening seem'd the while, |