Allan Ramsay. [A biography.] - National Library of Scotland

I50 FAMOUS SCOTS
Her looks they were so mild,
Free from affected pride,
She me to love beguiled,
I wished her for my bride.'
Take also 'Bessy Bell and Mary Gray'; what a
rich fancy and charming humour plays throughout the
piece, united to a keen knowledge of the human heart
' O Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,
They are twa bonny lasses
They bigg'd a bower on yon burnbrae.
And theek'd it o'er with rashes.
Fair Bessy Bell I loo'd yestreen,
And thought I ne'er could alter;
But Mary Gray's twa pawky e'en,
They gar my fancy falter,'
or that verse in his ' Scots Cantata,' with what simplicity,
yet with what true pathos, is it not charged ?
'O bonny lassie, since 'tis sae,
That I'm despised by thee,
I hate to live ; but O, I'm wae.
And unco sweer to dee.
Dear Jeany, think what dowy hours
I thole by your disdain :
Why should a breast sae saft as yours
Contain a heart of stane?'
George Withers' famous lines, 'Shall I, wasting in
despaire,' are not a whit more pathetic. Then if we
desire humour pure and unadulterated, where can be
found a more delightful //// than ' The Widow ' ?
;
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* The widow can bake, and the widow can brew,
The widow can shape, and the widow can sew,^
And mony braw things the widow can do,
Then have at the widow, my laddie.'
^ Pronounced in Scots, shoo.
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