The Scottish songs - National Library of Scotland

386
Where neither sun nor wind
E'er entrance had.
Into that hollow cave
There will I sigh and rave,
Because thou dost behave
So faithlessly.
Wild fruit shall be my meat>
I'll drink the spring
Cold earth shall be my seat
For covering,
I'll have the starry sky
My head to canopy,
Until my soul on high
Shall spread its wing.
I'll have no funeral fire,
No tears, nor sighs ;
No grave do I require,
Nor obsequies :
The courteous red-breast, he
With leaves will cover me,
And sing my elegy
With doleful voice.
And when a ghost I am,
I'll visit thee.
Oh, thou deceitful dame,
Whose cruelty
Has kill'd the kindest heart
That e'er felt Cupid's dart.
And never can desert
From loving thee ! *
* The story which gave rise to this song is related by Bums. The heroine
was one of the thirty-one children of Stirhng of Ardoch, in Perthshire,
a gentleman who seems to have lived in the reign of James the Sixth.
On account of her great beauty, she was usually called Fair Helen of Ardoch.
She was beloved by the eldest son of Chisholm of Cromlix, a family
of the neighbourhood, which was so respectable as to have given more