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RATTLIN ROARING WILLIE.

O rattlin roarin Willie,

O he held to the fair,
And for to sell his fiddle,

And buy some other ware;
But parting wi' his fiddle,

The saut tear blin't his ee;
And rattlin roarin Willie,

Ye're welcome hame to me.

O Willie, come sell your fiddle,
O sell your fiddle sae fine;
O Willie come sell your fiddle,
And buy a pint o' wine.
If I should sell my fiddle,

The warl' wad think I was mad;

For mony a ranting day

My fiddle and I hae had.

As I cam in by Crochallan,
I cannily keekit ben;
Rattlin roarin Willie

Was sitting at yon boord-en';
Sitting at yon boord-en',

And amang gude companie;
Rattlin, roarin Willie,

Ye're welcome hame to me.

[This song owes its preservation to Burns, who added the last verse in compliment to a friend of his, Colonel William Dunbar, "one of the worthiest fellows in the world." It was first printed in Johnson's Musical Museum, Part II. 1788.

VOL. II.

C

Mr. Allan Cunningham added the following stanza in his collec. tion of Scottish Songs-it is most likely his own composition

I made my gallant fiddle

Of our repentance stool;

The lasses went wild wi' laughing,
And danc'd frae Paste to Yule-
The doucest foot o' the parish

Has wagg'd to it wantonlie;
O monie's the mirthsome minute
My fiddle has made for me.

Hogg has also written a song carrying on the same sentiment.]

MONTGOMERY'S MISTRESS.

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY.

O nature lavished on my love
Each charm and winning grace-

It is a glad thing to sad eyes
To look upon her face:
She's sweeter than the sunny air

In which the lily springs;

While she looks through her clustering hair

That o'er her temples hings,

I'd stand and look on my true love

Like one grown to the ground;-
There's none like her in loveliness,
Search all the world around.

Her looks are like the May-day dawn
When light comes on the streams;
Her eyes are like the star of love,

With bright and amorous beams.

She walks-the blushing brook-rose seems
Unworthy of her foot;

She sings-the lark that hearkens her
Will evermore be mute,

For from her eyes there streams such light,
And from her lips such sound;
There's none like her in loveliness,
Search all the world around.

Her vestal breast of ivorie,
Aneath the snowy lawn,

Shows with its twin-born swelling wreaths,
Too pure to look upon;

While through her skin her sapphire veins
Seem violets dropt in milk,

And tremble with her honey breath
Like threads of finest silk;

Her arms are long, her shoulders broad,
Her middle small and round-

The mold was lost that made my love,
And never more was found.

[This is a very free and very beautiful modernization, if I may use such a word, of a song robed in the garb of antiquity, by Allan Cunningham. Specimens of Montgomery's own songs will be found in the Preface to this volume. See Laing's Edition of Montgomery's Poems, p. 208.]

MONTGOMERY'S MATCHLESS MARGARET.

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY.

Ye lovers leal forbear to style
Your ladies fairest of the fair;
A purer light is come on earth,

And they maun hope to shine nae mair.
There is a gem without compare,
The brightest e'er in crowns was set,
A lady fair, and sweet as rare,
Montgomery's matchless Margaret.

Her better nature far excels

Her noble birth and royal blood;
Fairest where all are fair, and full
Of native gifts and graces good-
The wit and wale of womanhood,

Mair sweet than roses newly wet
With thrice distilled dews-I wooed,
But won not matchless Margaret.
O mind me, Fortune, when you rain
Your idle crowns and sceptres down;
O Love, make me seem in her sight
The noblest that's beneath the sun:
O lang I've loved but never won,

And wander'd till my locks were wet
In midnight dew-drops, musing on
My loved, my matchless Margaret.

words see Laing's Edition of Montgomery's Poems, p. 161.]

[A modernized version by Allan Cunningham. For the original

WHILE WITH HER WHITE AND NIMBLE HANDS.

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY.

While with her white and nimble hands
My mistress gathering blossoms stands,
Amid the flowery mead ;—

Of lilies white, and violets,
A garland properly she plaits
To set upon her head :

Thou sun, now shining bright above,
If ever thou the fire of love

Hast felt, as poets feign:
If it be true, as true it seems,
In courtesy withdraw thy beams
Lest thou her colour stain.

If thou her fairness will not burn
She'll quit thee with a kinder turn,

And close her sparkling eyes;-
A brightness far surpassing thine,
Lest thou thereby ashamed should tyne
Thy credit in the skies.

[Modernized by Allan Cunningham.]

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