by Robert Burns
A bonny lass I will confess,
10 Is pleasant to the e’e, eye
But without some better qualities
She’s no a lass for me. not
But Nelly’s looks are blythe and sweet,
And, what is best of a’,
15 Her reputation is compleat,
And fair without a flaw;
She dresses ay sae clean and neat, always, so
Both decent and genteel;
And then there’s something in her gait
20 Gars onie dress look weel. makes, any, well
A gaudy dress and gentle air
May slightly touch the heart,
But it’s innocence and modesty
That polishes the dart.
25 ’Tis this in Nelly pleases me,
’Tis this enchants my soul;
For absolutely in my breast
She reigns without controul.
The poet’s autobiographical letter to Dr Moore, August 1787, tells us this song was written sometime in 1774 (Letter 125). It was, in the poet’s own words, an early attempt at the ‘sin of Rhyme’. The heroine is generally believed to be Helen (Nelly) Kirkpatrick, who worked in the harvest field alongside the young Burns. In the poet’s First Commonplace Book, this song is refered to as, ‘… the first of my performances, and done at an early period of life, when my heart glowed with honest warm simplicity; unacquainted, and uncorrupted with the ways of a wicked world. The performance is, indeed, very puerile and silly; but I am always pleased with it, as it recalls to my mind those happy days when my heart was yet honest and my tongue was sincere’.
Tragic Fragment
or A Penitential Thought in the Hour of Remorse – Intended for a Tragedy
First printed in The Scots Magazine, November, 1803.
All devil as I am, a damned wretch,
A harden’d, stubborn, unrepenting villain,
Still my heart melts at human wretchedness;
And with sincere tho’ unavailing, sighs
5 I view the helpless children of Distress.
With tears indignant I behold th’ Oppressor,
Rejoicing in the honest man’s destruction,
Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime.
Even you, ye hapless crew, I pity you;
10 Ye, whom the Seeming good think sin to pity;
Ye poor, despis’d, abandon’d vagabonds,
Whom Vice, as usual, has turn’d o’er to Ruin.
O, but for kind, tho’ ill-requited friends,
I had been driven forth like you forlorn,
15 The most detested, worthless wretch among you!
O injur’d God! Thy goodness has endow’d me
With talents passing most of my compeers,
Which I in just proportion have abus’d;
As far surpassing other common villains
20 As Thou in natural parts has given me more.
The poet records that this fragment was written when in his late teens (circa 1777–8) and formed part of a larger tragedy he had sketched out, but did not complete. This is one of his earliest statements of his perhaps most compulsive theme of social expulsion and abandonment which was the common fate of mice and men in the 1790s.
One Night as I did Wander
Tune: John Anderson My Jo, John
This first appears in Cromek’s Reliques, 1808.
One night as I did wander,
When corn begins to shoot,
I sat me down to ponder
Upon an auld tree root: old
Auld Aire ran by before me, the river Ayr
And bicker’d to the seas;
A cushat crouded o’er me, pigeon
That echoed thro’ the braes.
This has all the hallmarks of a stanza written to set the scene for a much longer song. It may have formed part of a longer poem, possibly the lost satirical work The Poet’s Rambles by The Banks of Ayr, which may have fallen victim to Currie’s destruction, particularly if the poem denigrated aristocratic families around Ayr.
The Lass of Cessnock Banks
First printed by Cromek, 1808.
Tune: The Butcher Boy
On Cessnock banks a lassie dwells;
Could I describe her shape and mien;
Our lasses a’ she far excels, all
An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een. two, eyes
5 She’s sweeter than the morning dawn
When rising Phoebus first is seen, the sun
And dew-drops twinkle o’er the lawn;
An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een.
She’s stately, like yon youthful ash
10 That grows the cowslip braes between hill ridges & slopes
And drinks the stream with vigour fresh;
An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een. two, eyes
She’s spotless, like the flow’ring thorn
With flow’rs so white and leaves so green
15 When purest in the dewy morn;
An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een. two, eyes
Her looks are like the vernal May
When ev’ning Phoebus shines serene,
While birds rejoice on ev’ry spray;
20 An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een.
Her hair is like the curling mist
That climbs the mountain sides at e’en,
When flow’r-reviving rains are past;
An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een.
25 Her forehead’s like the show’ry bow
When gleaming sun-beams intervene
And gild the distant mountain’s brow;
An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een.
Her cheeks are like yon crimson gem
30 The pride of all the flowery scene,
Just opening on its thorny stem;
An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een.
Her teeth are like the nightly snow
When pale the morning rises keen
35 While hid the murmuring streamlets flow;
An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een.
Her lips are like yon cherries ripe
Which sunny walls from Boreas screen;
They tempt the taste and charm the sight;
40 An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een.
Her breath is like the fragrant breeze
That gently stirs the blossom’d bean,
When Phoebus sinks behind the seas;
An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een.
45 Her voice is like the ev’ning thrush
That sings on Cessnock banks unseen,
While his mate sits nestling in the bush;
An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een.
But it’s not her air, her form, her face,
50 Though matching beauty’s fabled Queen;
’Tis the mind that shines in ev’ry grace;
An’ chiefly in her rogueish een.
An additional stanza in Henley and Henderson (1896) is not normally printed in modern editions. It conveys a more authentic tone than the stanza on the simile of ‘her teeth’. Given the natural flow of the song from simile to simile, it is improbable that Burns penned two stanzas on the one topic. Kinsley questions whether stanza 9 is by Burns or the ‘importation from some artless popular song’ (Vol. III, p. 1012).
[Her teeth are like a flock of sheep
With fleeces newly washen clean,
That slowly mount the rising steep —
An’ she has twa sparkling, rogueish een!]
The song was originally collected by Cromek from ‘the oral communication of a lady residing in Glasgow’, believed to be Alison Begbie, who was once a servant girl to a country house, near Cessnock, close to Lochlie farm. That of course, is not a proper source to give the song’s provenace. In 1839 the Pickering edition printed a version of this song supposed to be from ‘the poet’s own Manuscript’ not seen by subsequent editors. Unlike The Tree of Liberty, seen in manuscript by Dr Robert Cha
mbers, this apolitical song has never been questioned.
Fickle Fortune
First printed in Cromek, 1808.
Tune: I Dream’d I Lay
Tho’ fickle Fortune has deceived me,
She promis’d fair, and perform’d but ill;
Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav’d me,
Yet I bear a heart shall support me still. —
I’ll act with prudence as far as I’m able,
But if success I must never find,
Then come Misfortune, I bid thee welcome,
I’ll meet thee with an undaunted mind. —
This work is described in the First Commonplace Book as written ‘extempore under the pressure of a heavy train of Misfortunes, which indeed, threatened to undo me altogether … at the close of that dreadful period’.
O Raging Fortune’s Withering Blast
First printed in Cromek, 1808.
O Raging Fortune’s withering blast
Has laid my leaf full low! O
O raging Fortune’s withering blast
Has laid my leaf full low! O
5 My stem was fair my bud was green
My blossom sweet did blow; O
The dew fell fresh, the sun rose mild,
And made my branches grow; O
But luckless Fortune’s northern storms
10 Laid a’ my blossoms low, O
But luckless Fortune’s northern storms
Laid a’ my blossoms low, O.
This dates from the period of the poet’s perhaps psychosomatic illness, during the winter of 1781–2. The simile of Fortune as the raging winds of winter is simple and effective.
I’ll Go and be a Sodger
First printed in Currie, 1800.
O why the deuce should I repine,
And be an ill foreboder;
I’m twenty-three, and five feet nine,
I’ll go and be a sodger. soldier
I gat some gear wi’ meikle care, got, worldly goods, little
I held it weel thegither; well together
But now it’s gane, and something mair, gone, more
I’ll go and be a sodger. soldier
The song dates from April 1782, according to notes taken by Dr Currie from a farming memorandum notebook, which was last seen in the library of William Roscoe about 1815. There is no manuscript copy. Admittance to the canon has been on the word of Dr Currie. Perhaps ironically, out of economic necessity, certainly with a degree of self-dramatisation, Burns considered a military career: ‘Hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn that I used to strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier’ (Letter 125).
My Father was a Farmer
Tune: Jockie’s Gray Breeks or The Weaver and his Shuttle, O
First printed by Cromek, 1808.
My father was a farmer upon the Carrick border O
And carefully he bred me, in decency and order O.
He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne’er a farthing O
For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding O.
5 Chorus: Row de dow &c.
Then out into the world my course I did determine, O
Tho’ to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was charming O.
My talents they were not the worst, nor yet my education, O:
Resolv’d was I, at least to try, to mend my situation, O.
10 In many a way, and vain essay, I courted Fortune’s favour; O
Some cause unseen, still stept between, to frustrate each endeavour; O
Sometimes by foes I was o’erpower’d, sometimes by friends forsaken, O
And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst mistaken, O.
Then sore harass’d, and tir’d at last, with Fortune’s vain delusion, O,
15 I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams; and came to this conclusion; O
The past was bad, and the future hid; its good or ill untryed; O
But the present hour was in my pow’r, and so I would enjoy it, O.
No help, nor hope, nor view had I; nor person to befriend me; O
So I must toil, and sweat and broil, and labour to sustain me, O
20 To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred me early, O
For one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for Fortune fairly, O.
Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, thro’ life I’m doom’d to wander, O
Till down my weary bones I lay in everlasting slumber; O
No view nor care, but shun whate’er might breed me pain or sorrow; O
25 I live to-day as well’s I may, regardless of tomorrow, O.
But cheerful still, I am as well as a Monarch in a palace; O
Tho’ Fortune’s frown still hunts me down with all her wonted malice: O
I make indeed, my daily bread, but ne’er can make it farther; O
But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard her, O.
30 When sometimes by my labour I earn a little money, O
Some unforeseen misfortune comes gen’rally upon me; O
Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my good-natur’d folly; O
But come what will I’ve sworn it still, I’ll ne’er be melancholy, O.
All you who follow wealth and power with unremitting ardour, O
35 The more in this you look for bliss, you leave your view the farther; O
Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, or nations to adore you, O
A cheerful, honest-hearted clown I will prefer before you, O.
Other than commentary on Burns’s notes on the tune, that a North of Ireland song, The Weaver and his Shuttle, O, was exactly the same as the Scottish one, Kinsley says nothing about this song. Perhaps he was prejudiced by Burns’s own disparagement of it in his First Commonplace Book, April, 1874: ‘a wild rhapsody, miserably deficient in versification; but as the sentiments are the genuine feelings of my heart, for that reason, I have a particular pleasure in conning it over’. This early, probably 1782 song, is indeed seminal in its rehearsal of so many future themes: the constant frustration of his worthy hopes; the harshness of farm toil and the compensatory sense of independence despite all such difficulties. The first stanza is of particular note. In Liam McIlvanney’s forthcoming study, Burns the Radical: Poetry and Politics in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland, we will have a revaluation of the influence on the child of his father’s passionate, liberal educational values. As McIlvanney writes: ‘… it is crucial to appreciate that Burns’s education was far more extensive than his formal schooling. It could hardly be otherwise, given the fiercely intellectual presence of William Burnes, a man who bought and borrowed books for his sons and remorselessly engaged them in “improving” conversations.’ McIlvanney also notes the degree to which his father and his hired schoolmaster, John Murdoch, combined forces to educate Robert and Gilbert with a humane, often English Whig-inspired eighteenth-century liberalism, against the prevalent Auld Licht Culture.
Montgomerie’s Peggy
Tune: Galla Water
First printed by Cromek, 1808.
Altho’ my bed were in yon muir, that moor
Amang the heather, in my plaidie, among, old style kilt
Yet happy, happy would I be
Had I my dear Montgomerie’s Peggy. —
5 When o’er the hill beat surly storms,
And winter nights were dark and rainy;
I’d seek some dell, and in my arms wooden glen
I’d shelter dear Montgomerie’s Peggy. —
Were I a Baron proud and high,
10 And horse and servants waiting ready,
Then a’ ’twad gie o’ joy to me, all it would give
The sharin’t with Montgomerie’s Peggy. — sharing it
Composition is dated for around 1782. In the First Commonplace Book Burns writes this song is an ‘imitation of the manner of a noble old Scottish Piece called MacMillan’s Peggy, and sings to the tune of
Galla Water. – My Montgomerie’s Peggy was my Deity for six or eight months’. After laying courtship ‘siege’ to her, he was mortified to discover that she had already been pledged to another. Peggy is believed to have been a house maid at Coylfield House, owned by the Montgomerie family, according to the poet’s sister, later Mrs Begg.
Remorse:
A Fragment
First printed by Currie, 1800.
Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace;
That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish;
Beyond comparison the worst are those
That to our Folly, or our Guilt we owe.
5 In ev’ry other circumstance the mind
Has this to say, it was no deed of mine:
But, when to all the evil of misfortune
This sting is added, blame thy foolish self;
Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse:
10 The tort’ring, gnawing consciousness of guilt — torturing
Of guilt, perhaps, where we’ve involved others;
The young, the innocent, who fondly lov’d us;
Nay more, that very love their cause of ruin —
O! burning Hell! in all thy store of torments
15 There’s not a keener LASH —
Lives there a man so firm who, while his heart
Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime,
Can reason down its agonizing throbs,