The Scottish songs - National Library of Scotland

461
keep out the frost
Steek the doors ;
Come, Willie, gie's about your toast I
Fill it, lads, and tilt it out,
And let us hae a blythesome bout.
Up wi't ! there, there !
Huzza, huzza, and huzza, lads, t yet *
THROUGH THE WOOD, LADDIE.
Tune— Through the Wood, Laddie.
O, Sandy, why leave thus thy Nelly to mourn ?
Thy presence could ease me.
When naething- can please me
Now dowie I sigh on the bank o' the burn.
Or through the wood, laddie, until thou return.
Though woods now are bonnie, and mornings are clear.
While lavrocks are singing,
And primroses springing
Yet nane o' them pleases my eye or my ear.
When through the wood, laddie, ye dinna appear.
That I am forsaken, some spare not to tell
I'm fash'd wi' their scornin'
Baith e'enin' and mornin'
* From the Tea-Table Miscellany, 1724. There Is an old ballad (of
which, however, I have been unable to procure a copy) that appears to have
given the poet the first hint of this composition. It represents a tyrannical
uncle pursuing a young gentleman, his nephew, who had just been paying
his addresses to his cousin, the daughter of the said uncle. The youthful
lover has had the good sense to leave behind a servant, or companion, with
instructions to mislead the vengeful man, in case he should come up and
inquire which way the fugitive had gone. When the uncle comes up, this
individual answers to his inquiries, that the person he was in quest of—
is up in the air
On his bonnie gray mare.
And I see him, and I see him, and I see him yet."
The effect of which bamboozling is such as to permit the lover's esoape.
2q2
; ;
;
;
;