THE LADIES' EVENING SONG WAS written long ago, for the singing of a young lady in a house where we drank very deep, rather too deep for me, though "it's no little that gars auld Donald pech." It is beautifully set by Bishop in Goulding and D'Almaine's Select Scottish Melodies, to an air something like Dumbarton Drums, if not indeed the very same. O THE glass is no for you, Bonny laddie O! The glass is no for you, Bonny laddie O! The glass is no for you, For it dyes your manly brow, An' it fills you roarin' fu', Bonny laddie O! Then drive us not away We like your presence mair Than you're thinkin' o'. How happy wad you be In our blithesome companye, Taking innocence and glee Now your een are glancing bright, Bonny laddie O! Wi' a pure an' joyfu' light, Bonny laddie O! But at ten o'clock at night, Take a lady's word in plight, We will see another sight, There's a right path an' a wrang, Bonny laddie O! MARY, CANST THOU LEAVE ME? know Is finely set by Bishop to a melody of my own. I cannot aver that it is thoroughly my own; but if it is not, not where I heard it. But it is of no avail: since I think it is mine, it is equally the same as if it were so. MARY, canst thou leave me? Is there nought will move thee? I but live to love thee. When we two are parted, When the seas us sever, Is there nought can cheer me? Connal, cease to borrow Rueful words to chide me! From this land of sorrow Haste, O, haste to hide thee! Spirits round us hover, Breathing death and plunder; But when this is over, Which we tremble under, Then, dear youth, believe me, Though this time I grieve thee, Kindly I'll receive thee, Never more to sunder! BLACK MARY WAS set by young Gow to a fine Gaelic air, called " Is fallain gun dith thainig thu;" but I have forgot where it is to be found. My songs, bad as many of them are, have been for these last thirty years published in newspapers and other periodicals over all Britain, and there is only one person alive who ever can collect them, Mr John Aitken, of the house of Constable and Co. MARY is my only joy, Mary is blithe, and Mary is coy, Mary's the goud where there's nae alloy- Though black, yet O she's bonny! Her breath is the birken bower o' spring, Her lips the young rose opening, An' her hair is the hue o' the raven's wing, She's black, but O she's bonny! |