The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire (1842) - Gredos ...

The Salamanca Corpus: The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire (1842)
larity it has all along enjoyed. The edition given, the best
that has yet been in types, is printed from a copy of several
of her poems and songs, fairly and carefully written out, a
pparently either for publication or for the perusal of a friend,
all of which appear to have got her final corrections. See the air
in Neil Gow’s First Collection of Reels, &c. 3d.edit.p.8. It forms
the 541st song in “The Scots Musical Museum,” vol. vi., first
published in June 1803. The original title of the air seems to
have been “My Dearie, an’ thou dee.” It is the second song
to the music, the first being Gall’s beautiful “O, Mary, turn
awa.” “Both of these songs,” says Mr Stenhouse, “are excellent.”
[192]
Sae fine she goes, sae far aglee,
That folks she kenn’d she canna see;
An’ fleeching chiels around her thrang,
Till she miskens her a’ day lang.
There’s Jock, when the bit lass was poor,
Ne’er trudg’d o’er the lang mossy moor,
Though now to the knees he wades, I trow,
Through winter’s weet an’ winter’s snow:
An’ Pate declar’d the ither mom,
She was like a lily amang the corn;
Though anee he swore her dazzling een
Were bits o’ glass that black’d had been.
Now, lassies, I hae found it out,
What men make a’ this phrase about;
For when they praise your blinking ee,
’Tis certain that your gowd they see:
An when they talk o’ roses bland,
They think o’ the roses o’ your land;
But should dame Fortune turn her wheel,
They’d aff in a dance of a threesome reel.
[193] .
WHEN HOME WE RETURN.
AIR—O say, bonny Lass, will you lie in a barrack?