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

ALLAN RAMSAY 159
Not costly things, brocht frae afar,
As iv'ry, pearl and gems ;
Nor those fair straths that watered are
Wi' Tay an' Tweed's smooth streams.
Which gentily and daintily
Eat down the flow'ry braes.
As greatly and quietly
They wimple to the seas.'
Ramsay had the misfortune never to have studied the
technique of his art, so that in no respect is he a master
of rhythm. The majority of his longer poems, including
The Gentle Shepherd^ are written in the ordinary heroic
measure, so popular last century because so easily
manipulated. His songs for the most part are written in
familiar metres, not calculated to puzzle any bonny
singing Bess as she danced and hlted on the village
green. As a metrist, therefore, Ramsay can claim little
or no attention. His poetry was the spontaneous ebulli-
tion of his own feelings, and for their expression he seized
upon the first measure that came to hand.
Such, then, is Ramsay !
In
his matchless pastoral he
will ever live in the hearts of Scotsmen ; and were proof
needed, it would be found in the increasing numbers of
pilgrims who year by year journey to Carlops to visit the
scenes amongst which Peggy lived and loved. To any
one save the historian and the antiquarian, the remainder
of his poetry may now be of little value,— probably of
none,—amidst the multifarious publications which day
by day issue from the press. But by Scotsmen the
memory of the gentle, genial, lovable Allan will ever be
prized as that of one who, at a critical time, did more
to prevent Scottish national poetry from being wholly
absorbed by the mightier stream of English song than