The Canongate Burns

by Robert Burns

Tune: The Carlin o The Glen

  First printed in Johnson, 1796.

  Young Jamie, pride of a’ the plain,

  Sae gallant and sae gay a swain, so

  Thro’ a’ our lasses he did rove, all

  And reign’d resistless King of Love.

  5 But now, wi’ sighs and starting tears,

  He strays amang the woods and breers; among, briers

  Or in the glens and rocky caves

  His sad complaining dowie raves: — gloomy

  I, wha sae late did range and rove, who so

  10 And chang’d with every moon my love —

  I little thought the time was near,

  Repentance I should buy sae dear. so

  The slighted maids my torments see,

  And laugh at a’ the pangs I dree; all, suffer

  15 While she, my cruel, scornful Fair,

  Forbids me e’er to see her mair. ever, more

  This is included by Henderson and Henley and appears again in Mackay without comment. It is, though, either missed or rejected by Kinsley, despite the extant manuscript. It may have been merely copied by Burns, but it does read as though Burns may have improved it.

  As I Went Out Ae May Morning

  First printed in Johnson’s S.M.M., Vol. 4, 13th August, 1792.

  As I went out ae May morning, one one

  A May morning it chanc’d to be;

  There I was aware of a weelfar’d Maid well-/beautiful

  Cam linkin’ o’er the lea to me. – came dancing

  5 O but she was a weelfar’d maid,

  The boniest lass that’s under the sun;

  I spier’d gin she could fancy me, asked if

  But her answer was, I am too young.

  To be your bride I am too young,

  10 To be your loun wad shame my kin, fool would

  So therefore pray young man begone,

  For you never, never shall my favor win. –

  But amang yon birks and hawthorns green, among, birches

  Where roses blaw and woodbines hing, blow, hang

  15 O there I learn’d my bonie lass

  That she was not a single hour too young. –

  The lassie blush’d, the lassie sigh’d,

  And the tear stood twinklin in her e’e; eye

  O kind Sir, since ye hae done me this wrang, have, wrong

  20 Its pray when will ye marry me. –

  It’s of that day tak ye nae heed, take, no

  For that’s ae day ye ne’er shall see; one

  For ought that pass’d between us twa, two

  Ye had your share as weel as me. – well

  25 She wrang her hands, she tore her hair, wrung

  She cried out most bitterlie,

  O what will I say to my mammie,

  When I gae hame wi’ my big bellie! go home

  O as ye maut, so maun ye brew, malt, must

  30 And as ye brew, so maun ye tun; barrel

  But come to my arms, my ae bonie lass, one

  For ye never shall rue what ye now hae done! – have

  This pastourelle dialogue is apparently an old song, possibly altered by Burns. If this is so, it is questionable it should be in the canon. Mackay (1993) prints it saying it was ‘collected by Burns’ and has ‘minor improvements’ which he does not identify (p. 466). Kinsley says ‘whether he “improved” the verses is uncertain’ (Vol. III, no. 384, p. 1407). Doubt ought to have made Kinsley place this work in his ‘Dubia’ section. The current editors were unable to trace the old song to establish what improvements Burns made. Stanza four’s rhyming of ‘hing’ and ‘young’ would be a remarkable oversight from Burns if it is his reworking. There are a few phrases which he may have written, but it cannot be given to Burns without further evidence.

  Bannocks o’ Bear-Meal

  First printed in Johnson, 1796.

  Wha in a brulyie, will first cry ‘a parley’? who, brawl

  Never the lads wi’ the bannocks o’ barley!

  Chorus

  Bannocks o’ bear meal, bannocks o’ barley, barley

  Here’s to the Highlandman’s bannocks o’ barley!

  Wha, in his wae days, were loyal to Charlie? who, sad

  Wha but the lads wi’ the bannocks o’ barley! who

  This is unsigned in the S.M.M. A copy exists in the poet’s holograph, but Kinsley and Mackay concur that it was merely collected by Burns without revision, implying that it is not by Burns, nor improved by him. Such a view should have it rejected from the canon, but both editors, surprisingly, accept it to the canon. However, its origin may be the old song The Highlandman Speaking of His Maggy and the Bannocks of Barley Meal, written on the Duke of Argyll – if so, Burns has adapted the original.

  On a Thanksgiving for a National Victory

  First printed in Cunningham, 1834.

  Ye hypocrites! are these your pranks?

  To murder men, and give God thanks?

  Desist for shame! Proceed no further:

  God won’t accept your thanks for Murther. murder

  This is rejected by Kinsley (1968), but accepted in Henley and Henderson (1896) and Mackay (1993). No editor has dated composition. It reads as a reaction to a national thanksgiving day declared in the national newspapers for a victory against the French army. If by Burns, it is futher proof of his anti-military views. Henley and Henderson are probably right that it is adapted from Four Lines Put in the Basin of the Tron Church on the Thanksgiving Day for Perth and Preston, 17th June 1716:

  Did ever men play such pranks

  As for murder to give thanks:

  Hold, damned preachers, goe no furder,

  God accepts not thanks for murther. (Vol. ii, Notes, p. 442.)

  The text in Scott Douglas is more Scottish than the Henley– Henderson and version printed by Mackay. Without extant manuscript authority, the most favourable comment is that Burns probably adapted the traditional verse.

  A Monody on the Fatal 29th December, 1789

  First printed in The Glasgow Herald, 22nd March, 1919.

  Arms and the man I scorn to sing,

  The thread-bare tale is common,

  Coila thy chiefest succours bring,

  My theme is lovely Woman, Kyle

  5 O Muse! If e’er ye heard my prayer

  If e’er I dearly prized ye

  Haud to my hand wi’ rhymin ware

  To sing that fatal Tysday.

  Not for your faults, ye bony twa

  10 This Sair mishap ye’ve got it sore

  Your Virgin forms like Virgin Snow

  Are taintless and unspotted;

  But thou, Unlucky Davie,

  15 The Sins and Sinfu’ Companie

  Brought a’ this Cursed Shavie. trick

  Dispel your fears, ye lovely Pair,

  For a’ the ills that’s near ye

  Angels are Heaven’s peculiar Care

  Misfortunes dare na Steer ye not disturb you

  20 But Davie lad do thou repent

  E’er out again ye venture,

  Or Korah-like ye’ll meet a rent

  Will send ye to the centre.

  Had but the wheel within the wheel

  25 Of our administration

  Run wi their cargo to the deil devil

  It wad been less vexation;

  But such a precious freight nae less

  Then lovely Virgin Beauty

  30 How cou’d even senseless iron and brass

  Refuse to do its duty.

  This interesting and problematic poem first appeared in The Glasgow Herald as dated above. It was published by a Dr George Neilson who claimed that the poem formed part of a small quarto volume to which Helen Craik was the principal contributor. She had befriended the poet through her father, William Craik of Arbigland and there is, in fact, a letter from Burns on 9th August, 1790 to her discussing her poetry which is obviously proximate to the date of this particular poem. Unfortunately the quarto volume has disappeared and the poem seems to have stirred
neither comment nor controversy in the letter pages of The Herald. It is also the case that subsequent editors of Burns either knew nothing of it or decided it was unworthy of attention.

  Fortunately Chris Rollie of Cumnock Burns Club has retrieved the poem and presented a cogent, detailed account of it as belonging to Burns at Strathclyde University’s Burns Now Conference (January, 1999). As Neilson had done, Rollie pinpoints interesting parallels with Burns’s other work. Of particular point is l. 19 of this poem which manifestly echoes ‘Angelic forms, high Heaven’s peculiar care!’ from the again proximate Prologue spoken at Dumfries Theatre on 1st January, 1790. Rollie’s search for internal linguistic ‘fingerprints’ is detailed and largely convincing. The use for example of ‘Korah-like’ (l. 23) appears on one other occasion in Burns’s Epistle to John Rankine, written five years before.

  The poem may, of course, be a forgery. If the copying of Burns’s handwriting was a near cottage industry in the nineteenth century, some went further and fabricated poems. James Barke collected such forged works in the so-called Mavisgrove collection. Here is a characteristic sample:

  Assist me Coila, while I sing

  The virtues o’ a crony,

  That in the blessings friendship bring

  Has ne’er been match’d by mony.

  And wha’s the man sic land to gain?

  There can be nae mistakin;

  As if there could be mair than ane —

  Step forrat Robert Aitken!…

  Certainly the Monody is of a different order than this. If forged, the forger also went to an unusual degree of fabricating a biographical context. Neilson suggested an incident involving a David Campbell of Ayr and a carriage accident, ‘senseless iron and brass’, involving two actresses in Sutherland’s Dumfries company. Rollie minutely examines this possibility from the local Dumfries press but finds no confirmation. He replaces Neilson’s version with the interesting conjecture that the man referred to is David Staig, the long-term Provost of Dumfries, and his two daughters, Jessie and Lilias. This, as Rollie states, is deeply conjectural. Did, for example, Burns have such intimacy with the Staig family? However, as Rollie points out, Burns’s poem about Jessie, written to Dr Maxwell in 1793, again echoes l. 19:

  Maxwell, if merit you crave,

  That merit I deny:

  YOU save fair Jessie from the grave! —

  An Angel could not die.

  This is probably a light occasional Burns poem, the inevitably obscure occasion of which creates its difficulty. See Chris Rollie, ‘A Monody on the Fatal 29th December, 1789 – A Rediscovered Poem by Burns?’, B.C., 1998, pp. 62–9.

  On the Death of Echo, a Lap-Dog

  A variant of the poem by this title.

  In wood and wild, ye warbling throng,

  Your heavy loss deplore,

  Now half extinct your powers of song,

  Sweet Echo is no more.

  Ye jarring, screeching things around,

  Scream your discordant joys:

  Now half your din of tuneless sound

  With Echo silent lies.

  This work, supposedly written by Burns in late July 1793 while at Kenmure Castle, is believed by Kinsley (see notes to K416) to be verses remembered by John Syme from the Galloway tour, not the original text written by Burns. The second version is given in the canon as probably authentic.

  On the Illness of a Favourite Child

  First printed in Cunningham, 1834.

  Now health forsakes that angel face,

  Nae mair my Dearie smiles;

  Pale sickness withers ilka grace,

  And a’ my hopes beguiles:

  The cruel Powers reject the prayer

  I hourly mak for thee;

  Ye Heavens how great is my despair,

  How can I see him die!

  This is rejected by Henley and Henderson (1896) who describe it as ‘rubbish’ Burns would not even transcribe (Vol IV, p. 108). Kinsley (K628) doubts its provenance, aware that it exists in manuscript at Alloway, on the reverse of a page containing a song by a Mrs Scott of Dumbarton. If from Burns, it reads more like an early unfinished fragment than a stanza copied by him.

  REJECTED

  The Cauld House o’ Clay

  First published in an 1885 songsheet collection, ‘Songs by Robert Burns’.

  Farewell to the village, the best on the plain

  The low glens and green fields, which I’ll ne’er see again;

  Farewell to my sorrows, and farewell to my cares,

  The old frail folks, and the lasses so dear;

  5 At Kirk where I promised from folly to part,

  The one that ensnared me I lie without smart;

  But O, how the sons o’ the lodge can I lay,

  And gang to my lang hame, the cauld house o’ clay?

  I have been a Mason and a sad life I had

  10 [Three missing lines are indicated here by astericks]

  Let Cowan and Craftsman be faithfully just,

  Ne’er trifling with secrets, or babbling with trust;

  Our place may be higher than those who more pray,

  When eased from our lang hame, the cauld house o’ clay.

  15 You’ll move round, Sons o’ Fellowship, yearly move round,

  On the long summer-day, say a part to St. John;

  As true temples of worth let your tried bosoms stand,

  And say faith and troth by the wave of your hand;

  Be faithful and friendly to those who want skill,

  20 And the plan you perverted be sure to fulfil.

  Live up to your Principles – O that you may! –

  When I’m in my lang house, the cauld house o’ clay.

  You will bury with honour the poor Widow’s son,

  While the folk from the old walls look curiously on.

  25 When I am a stranger, and lying my lane,

  You’ll give me a round, aye, concerning the strain;

  It is lost among nettles – you’ll find if you search,

  My tomb of remembrance is marked with an arch.

  I am very low, Brethern; you’ll wake the whole day,

  30 And then take me hame, to my cauld house o’ clay.

  This is not mentioned in any published edition of Burns. It is printed as a work by Burns in a songsheet collection among papers in the Mitchell Library Nineteenth Century Newspaper Cuttings Collection (ref. G52942). The headnote reads: ‘The last composition of the great Poet; as sung by Brother John Doherty (an old Mason of 83 years of age) at a meeting of Lodge No. 350, Omagh, Ireland, 1871’. The song supposedly turned up in 1871, but without manuscript. It is printed next to known works, The Dumfries Volunteers, To Mary In Heaven, Rantin’ Rovin’ Robin, O Tibbie I Hae Seen the Day and Green Grow the Rashes O. The lyrics are so bad that it is astounding they could be attributed to Burns. It is evidently a work from circa 1871 and fulfils Burns’s worst fears about the parochialisation of his achievement.

  When First I Saw Fair Jeanie’s Face

  Tune: Maggie Lauder

  First printed in The New York Mirror, 1846.

  When first I saw fair Jeanie’s face,

  I couldna tell what ail’d me: could not

  My heart went fluttering pit-a-pat,

  My een they almost fail’d me. eyes

  5 She’s aye sae neat, sae trim, sae tight, always so

  All grace does round her hover!

  Ae look depriv’d me o’ my heart, one

  And I became her lover.

  Chorus

  She’s aye, aye sae blithe, sae gay,

  10 She’s aye sae blithe and cheerie,

  She’s aye sae bonie, blithe and gay,

  O, gin I were her dearie! if

  Had I Dundas’s whole estate,

  Or Hopetoun’s wealth to shine in;

  15 Did warlike laurels crown my brow,

  Or humbler bays entwining;

  I’d lay them a’ at Jeanie’s feet,

  Could I but hope to move her,

>   And, prouder than a belted knight,

  20 I’d be my Jeanie’s lover.

  But sair I fear some happier swain, sore

  Has gain’d my Jeanie’s favour.

  If so, may every bliss be hers,

  Though I maun never have her! shall

  25 But gang she east, or gang she west, go

  ’Twixt Forth and Tweed all over,

  While men have eyes, or ears, or taste,

  She’ll always find a lover.

  Mackay includes this although Kinsley rejects it. Mackay justifies inclusion by stating ‘Published in all major editions except Kinsley. Perhaps the references to “fair Jeanie” were too obvious’ (p. 612). This slants the evidence. Both Scott Douglas and then Henley and Henderson question its authenticity. They question the integrity of Alexander Smith who claimed to have seen a manuscript during 1868. No one has seen the manuscript since. Nor is there a motive for suppressing such a song. So, Kinsley was not out of step rejecting the song. When it first appeared in Chambers he notes that it featured in The New York Mirror in 1846 and is supposedly written about Jean Jeffrey, daughter of the minister of Lochmaben. Burns wrote The Blue Eyed Lassie about her and published it in 1790. This work does not have the same originality and reads like an imitation of Burns written to impress a woman that the author is desperate to have as a partner. The phrase ‘pit-a-pat’ is not to be found anywhere in Burns. The second stanza does not ring true to Burns’s values, as he would hardly have craved the possessions of the Dundas family.