The Scottish songs - National Library of Scotland

443
OH, ARE YE SLEEPIN', MAGGIE?
TANNAHILL.
Tune—Sleepy Maggie.
O, ARE ye sleepin', Maggie?
O, are ye sleepin', Maggie ?
Let me in, for loud the linn
Is roarin' o'er the warlock craigie !
Mirk and rainy is the night
No a starn in a' the carie
Lightnings gleam athwart the lift,
And winds drive on wi' winter's fury.
Fearfu' soughs the boor-tree bank
The rifted wood roars wild and drearie
Loud the iron yett does clank
And cry o' howlets maks me eerie.
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Aboon my breath I daurna speak,
For fear I raise your waukrife daddy
Cauld's the blast upon my cheek
O rise, rise, my bonny lady
nity of piinting the effusions of a rustic muse. It fell to the lot of Mr SI
riff to afford him this opportunity. The Aberdeeni-hire poet was one of the
very first of those individuals who were encouraged by the success of Burns
to attempt similar poetical publications. Mr , the printer, agreed,
without a moment's hesitation, to undertake the risk of putting his lucubrations
into the shape of a book. An enormous edition was printed in
two duodecimo volumes. The work was published ; but, alas for the calculations
of the publisher, although the poetry possessed a very respectable
degree of merit, and seemed to be exactly of the same sort with that of the
lucky man were lost ; and Mr —^— ,
Ayrshire bard, a tithe of it did not sell. The lucky moment and the
in addition to his former negative
misfortune, had now to regret one of a positive nature, and which was ten
times harder to bear.
This anecdote, the poeticalJustice of which is very striking, may be depended
on as true, being derived from the memory of a respectable printer,
who was in Mr 's employment at the time when the whole circumstances
took place.
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