sae bonnie,

the second alone was his own production. An- But I'll big a bower on yon green bank other stanza was interpolated by the Poet in his second and improved version, which is alone here given, and the pathetic tenderness of which he greatly enhanced by one or two delicate emendations.]

O WHARE gat ye that bonnie blue

bonnet?

O what makes them aye put the question to me?

I got it frae a bonnie Scots callan,

Atween St. Johnston and bonnie
Dundee.

O gin I saw the laddie that ga'e me 't!
Aft has he doudled me up on his
knee;

May Heaven protect my bonnie Scots laddie,

That's laved by the waters o' Tay

wimplin' clear,

And cleed thee in tartans, my wee smiling Johnnie,

And make thee a man like thy daddie dear.

THE JOYFUL WIDOWER.

[This is the ninety-eighth song in Johnson's collection, and is presumably, though not quite certainly, from the hand of Burns. To no one

An send him safe hame to his babie else can it be traced, and the original manu

script is in his handwriting.]

Tune-" Maggie Lauder."

I MARRIED with a scolding wife
The fourteenth of November;
She made me weary of my life,
By one unruly member.

Long did I bear the heavy yoke,

And many griefs attended;
But, to my comfort be it spoke,
Now, now her life is ended.

We lived full one-and-twenty years

A man and wife together;
At length from me her course she steered,
And gone I know not whither.

Would I could guess, I do profess—
I speak, and do not flatter-
Of all the women in the world,
I never could come at her.

Thy smiles are sae like my blithe sodger Her body is bestowed well,
A handsome grave does hide her;

laddie,

Thou's aye the dearer and dearer to But sure her soul is not in hell

me.

The de'il could ne'er abide her.

O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,

lad;

Though father and mither and a' should

gae mad,

[The merest rough outline of its refrain was O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my all that was first issued by Burns of this famous song, which has since made the tour of both hemispheres. It was contributed by him, in that elementary form, to Johnson's Museum, towards the close of 1787, and it was nearly six years afterwards, in the August of 1793, that the Poet despatched to Thomson the complete version of the lyric here subjoined.]

But warily tent when ye come to court me,

And come na unless the back-yett be ajee;

Syne up the back-stile, and let naebody

see,

And come as ye were na comin' to me.

O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.

I'M OWRE YOUNG TO MARRY

YET.

[Both the saucy chorus and the sprightly air of the following song were very old, but with them Burns associated new words, which, slightly

O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my modified to adapt them to ears polite, obtained, lad, two generations back, a wild popularity.]

O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my

lad;

Tune-"I'm owre young to marry yet."

Though father and mither and a' should I AM my mammy's ae bairn, gae mad,

Wi' unco folk I weary, Sir;

O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my And lying in [anither's] bed, lad.

At kirk or at market, whene'er ye meet

me,

Gang by me as though that ye cared na a flie;

I'm fleyed 't wad mak' me eerie, Sir.
[I'm owre young to marry yet;
I'm owre young to marry yet;
I'm owre young-'t wad be a sin
To tak' me from my mammy
yet.]

S