ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

Tell me how you like this. I differ from your idea of the expression of the tune. There is, to me, a great deal of tenderness in it. You cannot, in my opinion, dispense with a bass to your addenda airs. A lady of my acquaintance, a noted performer, plays and sings at the same time so charmingly, that I shall never bear to see any of her songs sent into the world, as naked as Mr. What-d'ye-call-um has done in his London collection. *

These English songs gravel me to death. I have not that command of the language that I have of my native tongue. I have been at Duncan Gray, to dress it in English, but all I can do is deplorably stupid. For instance.

[blocks in formation]

Look abroad through nature's range,
Nature's mighty law is change;
Ladies would it not be strange,

Man should then a monster prove?

Mark the winds, and mark the skies;
Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow:

Sun and moon but set to rise,

Round and round the seasons go :

Why then ask of silly man,

To oppose great nature's plan ?
We'll be constant while we can-

You can be no more you know.

Since the above, I have been out in the country taking a dinner with a friend, where I met with the lady whom I mentioned in the second page of this odds-and-ends of a letter. As usual, I got into song; and returning home, I composed the following.

The

The Lover's morning salute to his Mistress.

Tune-" DEIL TAK THE WARS."

SLEEP'ST thou, or wak'st thou fairest creature;

Rosy morn now lifts his eye,
Numbering ilka bud which nature

Waters wi' the tears o' joy :

Now through the leafy woods,

And by the reeking floods;

Wild nature's tenants, freely, gladly stray;

The lintwhite in his bower

Chants, o'er the breathing flower:

The lav'rock to the sky

Ascends wi' sangs o' joy,

While the sun and thou arise to bless the day. *

Phœbus

* Variation. Now to the streaming fountain,

Or up the heathy mountain

The hart, hind, and roe, freely, wildly-wanton stray;

In twining hazel bowers

His lay the linnet pours:

The lav'rock, &c.

E.

Phoebus gilding the brow o' morning,
Banishes ilk darksome shade,
Nature gladdening and adorning ;
Such to me my lovely maid.
When absent frae my fair,

The murky shades o' care

With starless gloom o'ercast my sullen sky;

But when, in beauty's light,

She meets my ravish'd sight,
When through my very heart
Her beaming glories dart;

'Tis then I wake to life, to light and joy.

If you honor my verses by setting the air to them, I will vamp up the old song and make it English enough to be understood.

I

*Variation. When frae my Chloris parted,

Sad, cheerless, broken-hearted,

Then night's gloomy shades, cloudy, dark, o'ercast my sky: But when she charms my sight,

In pride of beauty's light;

When thro' my very heart

Her beaming glories dart;

'Tis then, 'tis then I wake to life and joy.

E.

I inclose you a musical curiosity, an East Indian air, which you would swear was a Scottish one. I know the authenticity of it, as the gentleman who brought it over is a particular acquaintance of mine. Do preserve me the copy I send you, as it is the only one I have. Clarke has set a bass to it, and I intend putting it into the musical Museum. Here follow the verses I intend for it.

THE AULD MAN.

BUT lately seen in gladsome green
The woods rejoic'd the day,

Thro' gentle showers the laughing flowers
In double pride were gay :

But now our joys are fled,

On winter blasts awa!

Yet maiden May, in rich array,
Again shall bring them a'.

But my

white pow, nae kindly thowe Shall melt the snaws of age;

My trunk of eild, but buss or beild,

Sinks in time's wintry rage.

Oh,

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »