with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

69
*Mang stacks with the lasses at bogle to play ;*
For ilk ane sits drearie,
Lamenting her dearie,
The flow'rs o' the forest wh' are a' wed away.
In har'st at the shearing,
Nae blythe lads are jeering.
The Banstersf are lyart,J and runkled, and grey
At fairs nor at preaching,
Nae wooing, nae fleeching,§
Since our bra foresters are a' wed away.
* The diversion here alUided to is still a common amusement
among yomig people in Scotland, and is called bogle about the
stacks. To understand it, let the English reader be informed,
that there it is customary to put up the corns in round ricks,
called stacks, close together in a yard adjoining to the barn.
The diversion consists in one person hunting several others
among these stacks, and usually consists of as numerous a party
as can be easily collected together. It is chiefly confined to
very young boys and girls, for very obvious reasons, near towns ;
but in the country, it affords sometimes a very innocent and
attractive amusement for the youth of both sexes, when farther
advanced in life.
t Bamters, Bandsters, i. e. Binders, men who bind up the
sheaves behind the reapers.
$ Lyart, a term appropriated to denote a peculiarity which is
often seen to affect aged persons, when some of the locks be-
come grey sooner than others. Where the mixture of black and
white hairs is pretty uniform, the hair is said to be grey.
X Fleeching means nearly the same thing with coaxing; pro-
;
perly