The Scottish songs - National Library of Scotland

343
To win me frae these waefu' thouglits,
They took me to the tomi
Where soon, in ilka weel-kenn'd faco,
I raiss'd the youth fu' bloom.
At balls they pointed to a nymph
Whom all declared divine ;
But sure her mother's blushing face
Was fairer far langsyne.
Ye sons to comrades o' my youth,
Forgive an auld man's spleen,
Wha 'midst your gayest scenes still mourns
The days he ance has seen.
When time is past, and seasons fled,
Your hearts may feel like mine
And aye the sang will maist delight,
That minds you o' langsyne.
LEADER HAUGHS AND YARROW*
NICOL BURNE.
Tune—Leader Hanglis and Varron:
W^HEN Phoebus bright the azure skies
With golden rays enlight'neth,
He makes all nature's beauties rise,
Herbs, trees, and flowers he quick'neth :
* This song is little better than a string of names of places. Yet there
is something so pleasing in it, especially to the ear of " a south-coinitry
man," that it has long maintained its place in our collections. We all
know what impressive verse Milton makes out of mere catalogues of localities.
The author, Nicol Burne, is supposed to have been one of the last of the
old race of minstrels. In an old collection of songs, in their original state
of ballants, I have seen his name printed as " Burne the violer," which
seems to indicate the instrument upon which he was in the practice of accompanying
his recitations. I was told by an aged person at Earlston,
that there used to be a portrait of him in Thirlstane Castle, representing
him as a douce old man, leading a cow by a straw-rope.
Thirlstane Castle, the seat of the Earl of Lauderdale, near Lauder, is the
castle of which the poet speaks in such terms of admiration. It derives the