Read The Canongate Burns Online
Authors: Robert Burns
The Canongate Burns (125 page)
Why should we vainly waste our prime
       Repeating our oppressions?
Come rouse to arms 'tis now the time
       To punish past transgressions.
5
'Tis said that Kings can do no wrong -
       Their Murderous deeds deny it,
And since from us their power has sprung,
       We have the right to try it.
             Chorus:
Come rouse to arms &c
.
The starving wretch who steals for bread
10
       But seldom meets compassion -
And shall a Crown preserve the head
       Of him who robs a Nation?
Such partial laws we all despise
       See Gallia's bright example
15
The glorious sight before our eyes
       We'll on every Tyrant Trample.
            Â
Come rouse to arms &c
.
Proud Bishops next we will translate
      Â
Among Priest crafted Martyrs;
The guillotine on Peers shall wait;
20
      Â
And Knights we'll hang in Garters.
Those Despots long have trod us down,
      Â
And judges are their Engines:
These Wretched Minions of a Crown
      Â
Demand a people's Vengeance!
            Â
Come rouse &c.
25
Our juries are a venal pack
       See Justice Topsy Turvy
In Freedom's cause they've turn'd aback
       Of Englishmen unworthy.
The Glorious work but once begun
30
       We'll Cleanse the Augean stable
A moment lost and we are undone.
       Come strike while we are able.
            Â
Come rouse &c.
The Golden Age will then revive
       Each Man shall be a Brother;
35
In peace and harmony will live,
       And share the World together.
In Virtue train'd, Enlightened Youth
       Will love each fellow creature;
And future years shall prove the truth
40
       That man is good by nature.
This is evidently the work of a passionately radical poet. The two most likely authors of the original are Thomas Spence, author of
Pig's Meat, Address to the Swinish Multitude
, and Joseph Mather, the Sheffield poet whose best known polemical works are
True
Reformers, Britons Awake
and
The File Hewer's Lamentation
. Despite finding the above text in manuscript, it is not possible, as yet, to establish for certain the original author. However, it seems pretty clear that for Burns to make his own manuscript version, he must first have seen the above, original text.
The difference between the two songs is that the original has two additional stanzas. Contextually, the song can be dated to late 1794 when the London treason trials began. The Burns-attributed version drops the chorus to a double-line refrain. The first of these appears to echo
Scots Wha Hae
, âNow each new patriot's song shall be:- / âWelcome Death or Libertie'. The second sounds less like Burns, âTo-day 'tis theirs. To-morrow we/ Shall don the Cap of Libertie'. The third refrain vividly echoes
There Was A Lad
âas sure as three times three â¦': âThen let us toast with three times three, / The reign of Peace and Libertie!' The final lines ring true to expected improvements from Burns and he, in so doing, would have cut away the weaker verses.
So, although the Burns manuscript is no longer extant, we can now compare and contrast the so-called Burns version and conclude with little doubt that the song is not his. It was written, almost
certainly by an English radical poet. However, on the evidence that Burns appears to have seen the original and made improvements to it, the song can be added to the canon in the category of works he improved. Around thirty percent of the songs allowed to the canon are only partly his. The song, of course, gives further evidence of Burns's integral relationship to British radicalism.
Tune: When She Cam Ben She Bobbit â
First printed in Currie, 1800.
O, saw ye my Dearie, my Phely?
O, saw ye my Dearie, my Phely?
She's down i' the grove, she's wi' a new Love,
        She winna come hame to her Willy. â
will not
What says she, my Dearest, my Phely?
What says she, my Dearest, my Phely?
She lets thee to wit she has thee forgot,
        And for ever disowns thee her Willy. â
O had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely!
O had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely!
As light as the air, and fause as thou's fair,
false
        Thou 's broken the heart o' thy Willy. â
This was sent to Thomson on 19th October, 1794. It is a variation on his earlier song
My Eppie McNab
.
Tune: Cauld Kail.
First printed by Thomson, 1798.
How lang and dreary is the night,
long
       When I am frae my Dearie;
from
I restless lie frae e'en to morn,
       Tho' I were ne'er sae weary. â
so
Chorus
5
For Oh, her lanely nights are lang;
lonely, long
       And Oh, her dreams are eerie;
fearful
And Oh, her widow'd heart is sair,
sore
       That's absent frae her Dearie. â
from
When I think on the lightsome days
10
       I spent wi' thee, my Dearie;
And now what seas between us roar,
       How can I be but eerie. â
fearful
             For Oh &c.
How slow ye move, ye heavy hours;
       The joyless day how dreary:
15
It was na sae ye glinted by,
       When I was wi' my Dearie. â
             For Oh &c.
This was adapted from an old song and sent to Thomson on 19th October, 1794: âI have taken a stride or two across my room and arranged it anew' (Letter 644). Mackay quotes part of this same letter by Burns, but confuses the issue by printing the earliest version of the song by Burns as the âsecond version', making the earlier lyric seem like the final lyric. An earlier version appears in Johnson's S.M.M in 1788. Only the final version as sent to Thomson is given here.
Tune: Duncan Gray
First printed by Thomson, 1798.
LET NOT Woman e'er complain
      Of inconstancy in love;
Let not Woman e'er complain
      Fickle Man is apt to rove:
5
Look abroad thro' Nature's range,
      Nature's mighty law is CHANGE;
Ladies would it not be strange
      Man should then a monster prove. â
Mark the winds, and mark the skies;
10
      Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow:
Sun and moon but set to rise;
      Round and round the seasons go:
Why then ask of silly Man,
      To oppose great Nature's plan?
15
We'll be constant while we can â
      You can be no more, you know. â
Thomson had for commercial reasons asked Burns to compose English lyrics to match traditional airs. The relatively unhappy
verses above corroborate Burns's response (Letter 644): âThese English songs gravel me to death. â I have not that command of the language ⦠that I have of my mother tongue. â In fact, I think that my ideas are more barren in English than in Scots.'
or
The Winter of Life
Tune: The Death of the Linnet
First printed by Johnson, December 1796.
BUT lately seen in gladsome green
      The woods rejoiced the day,
Thro' gentle showers the laughing flowers
      In double pride were gay:
5
But now our joys are fled â
      On winter blasts awa!
away
Yet maiden May, in rich array
      Again shall bring them a'. â
But my white pow â nae kindly thowe
head, no, thaw
10
      Shall melt the snaws of Age;
snows
My trunk of eild, but buss and bield,
old age, bush, shelter
      Sinks in Time's wintry rage. â
Oh, Age has weary days!
      And nights o' sleepless pain!
15
Thou golden time o' Youthfu' prime,
      Why comes thou not again!
This was sent to Thomson among the bundle of songs dated 19th October, 1794. Burns told Thomson that the original melody was an âEastern air, which you would swear was a Scottish one' (Letter 644). The tune given above is the one used by Thomson who printed the song a few years after Johnson.
or
Sleep'st Thou or Wauk'st Thou
Tune: Deil Tak the Wars
First printed by Thomson, 1798.
SLEEP'ST thou, or wauk'st thou, fairest creature;
wakest
             Rosy morn now lifts his eye,
Numbering ilka bud which Nature
each
             Waters wi' the tears o' joy.
5
       Now, to the streaming fountain
       Or up the heathy mountain,
The hart, hind, and roe, freely, wanton stray;
       In twining hazel bowers,
       His lay the linnet pours;
10
       The lavrock to the sky
lark
       Ascends, wi' sangs o' joy:
songs
While the sun and thou arise to bless the day.
Phoebus, gilding the brow of morning,
              Banishes ilk darksome shade,
each
15
Nature gladdening and adorning:
              Such, to me, my lovely maid.
       When frae my Chloris parted,
from
       Sad, cheerless, broken-hearted,
Then night's gloomy shades o'ercast my sky:
20
       But when she charms my sight,
       In pride of Beauty's light;
       When thro' my very heart,
       Her beaming glories dart;
'Tis then â' tis then I wake to life and joy!
This was among the packet sent to Thomson on 19th October, 1794. The title adopted here is that suggested by Burns and given in Kinsley. âChloris' refers to Jean Lorimer.
on his High Phaeton
First printed in Henley and Henderson, 1896.
Thou Fool, in thy Phaeton towering,
      Art proud when that Phaeton's prais'd?
'Tis the pride of a Thief's exhibition
      When higher his pillory's rais'd.
William Ramsay Maule (1771â1841), Earl of Panmure, was seen by Burns riding away from the Caledonian Hunt races in a high open carriage or phaeton at the race ground at Tinwald Downs. His display of self-importance provoked this epigram which was sent to Mrs Dunlop in November 1794. Burns describes the scene and its âroar of Folly and Dissipation ⦠One of the Corps provoked my ire
the other day which burst out as follows' (Letter 645). The reference to a âThief' is probably Burns's idea that the Earl's inherited wealth was ill gotten. The winning horse in the Caledonian Hunt race at Dumfries in late Autumn 1792, named âSans Culotte' never features again after January 1793 or was given a more
loyal
name. Panmure in 1817 settled an annuity of £60 on Burns's widow (
The Burns
Chronicle
, 1964, p. 23).
Tune: Daintie Davie
First printed in Thomson, 1799.
It was the charming month of May,
When all the flowers were fresh and gay,
One morning, by the break of day,
            The youthful, charming Chloe;
5
From peaceful slumber she arose,
Girt on her mantle and her hose,
And o'er the flowery mead she goes,
            The youthful, charming Chloe.
Chorus
Lovely was she by the dawn,
10
            Youthful Chloe, charming Chloe,
Tripping o'er the pearly lawn,
The youthful, charming Chloe.
The feather'd people you might see,
Perch'd all around on every tree,
15
In notes of sweetest melody
            They hail the charming Chloe;
Till, painting gay the eastern skies,
The glorious sun began to rise,
Out-rivall'd by the radiant eyes
20
            Of youthful, charming Chloe.
                        Lovely was she &c.
This was sent to Thomson in November 1794. Burns told Thomson he took the idea for the song from an old lyric in
The Tea-Table
Miscellany
(Letter 646).