Read The Canongate Burns Online
Authors: Robert Burns
The Canongate Burns (59 page)
Lamentation for the Death of her Son,
or
A Mother's Lament
Tune: Finlayston House â
First printed in the S.M.M., Vol. 3, 2nd February, 1790.
âFate gave the word, the arrow sped,'
       And pierc'd my Darling's heart;
And with him all the joys are fled,
       Life can to me impart. âÂ
5
By cruel hands the Sapling drops,
       In dust dishonor'd laid:
So fell the pride of all my hopes,
       My age's future shade. â
The mother-linnet in the brake
10
       Bewails her ravish'd young;
So I, for my lost Darling's sake,
       Lament the live day long. â
Death! oft, I've fear'd thy fatal blow;
       Now, fond, I bare my breast;
15
O, do thou kindly lay me low,
       With him I love at rest!
The title given here is the title Burns himself adopted when informing Mrs Dunlop of the song he had just written (Letter 275) on 27th September 1788. The title generally used is
A Mother's
Lament.
First printed in S.M.M., Vol. 3, 2nd February, 1790.
The Catrine woods were yellow seen,
       The flowers decay'd on Catrine lee,
Nae lav'rock sang on hillock green,
no lark
       But Nature sicken'd on the e'e.
eye
5
Thro' faded groves Maria sang,
       Hersel in beauty's bloom the while,
herself
And ay the wild-wood echoes rang â
       Fareweel the braes o' Ballochmyle.
farewell, hill sides
Low in your wintry beds, ye flowers,
10
       Again ye'll flourish fresh and fair;
Ye birdies dumb, in with'ring bowers,
       Again ye'll charm the vocal air.
But here alas! for me nae mair
no more
       Shall birdie charm, or floweret smile;
bird
15
Fareweel the bonnie banks of Ayr,
       Fareweel, fareweel! sweet Ballochmyle!
farewell, hill sides
This song, in the voice of âMaria', Mary Anne Whitefoord, Sir John Whitefoord's oldest daughter, laments the family loss of their country estate in Ayrshire when its finances were almost ruined by the collapse of the Ayr Bank. It was composed in 1785. The poet's Edinburgh friend Allan Masterton composed the music.
First published in S.M.M., Vol 3, 2nd February 1790.
O wha my babie-clouts will buy,
who, -linen
O wha will tent me when I cry;
who, attend to
Wha will kiss me where I lie,
who
        The rantin dog, the daddie o't.
fun-loving, of it
5
O wha will own he did the faut,
who, fault
O wha will buy the groanin maut,
who, groaning/midwife's ale
O wha will tell me how to ca't,
name it
The rantin dog, the daddie o't.
When I mount the Creepie-chair,
stool of repentance
10
Wha will sit beside me there,
who
Gie me Rob, I'll seek nae mair,
give, no more
        The rantin dog, the daddie o't.
Wha will crack to me my lane;
converse, alone
Wha will mak me fidgin fain;
who, sexually excited
15
Wha will kiss me o'er again
who
        The rantin dog, the daddie o't.
Burns comments in the Interleaved S.M.M., âI composed this song very early in life, and sent it to a young girl, a very particular friend of mine, who was at that time under a cloud'. The likely recipient was probably Elizabeth Paton, who bore a child to Burns, although
this is not certain. What is interesting is that this song, unlike several other poems on the subject, gives voice not to the father but to the unmarried mother.
Tune: Captain Cook's Death
First printed in the S.M.M., Vol. 3, 2nd February, 1790.
Thou ling'ring Star with less'ning ray,
        That lovest to greet the early morn,
Again thou usherest in the day
        My Mary from my Soul was torn.
5
O Mary! dear departed Shade!
        Where is thy place of blissful rest?
Seest thou thy Lover lowly laid?
        Hearest thou the groans that rend his breast?
That sacred hour can I forget,
10
        Can I forget the hallow'd grove,
Where by the winding Ayr we met,
        To live one day of Parting Love?
Eternity cannot efface
        Those records dear of transports past;
15
Thy image at our last embrace,
        Ah, little thought we 'twas our last!
Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore,
        O'erhung with wild-woods, thickening, green;
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
20
        'Twin'd, amorous, round the raptur'd scene:
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
        The birds sang love on every spray;
Till too, too soon the glowing west
        Proclaim'd the speed of winged day. â
25
Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes,
        And fondly broods with miser-care;
Time but th' impression stronger makes,
        As streams their channels deeper wear:
My Mary, dear, departed Shade!
30
        Where is thy place of blissful rest!
Seest thou thy Lover lowly laid!
        Hearest thou the groans that rend his breast!
On 13th December 1789 Burns expostulated to Mrs Dunlop, discussing who he might meet if there were an after-life: âThere should I, with speechless agony of rapture, again recognise my lost, my ever dear MARY, whose bosom was fraught with Truth, Honour, Constancy & LOVE' (Letter 374). He had already sent a copy of the song to Mrs Dunlop in November, but requotes his own lines in December. The identity of Mary or âMargaret' Campbell has been an obsessive preoccupation with some Burnsians since the early nineteenth century, culminating in the recent macabre call to exhume a grave near Greenock and employ D.N.A. testing to answer the myth.
Tune: My Eppie
First printed in the S.M.M., Vol. 3, 2nd February, 1790.
By Love, and by Beauty;
By Law, and by Duty;
I swear to be true to
       My Eppie Adair!
Chorus
5
An O, my Eppie,
My Jewel, my Eppie!
Wha wadna be happy
who would not
       Wi' Eppie Adair!
A' Pleasure exile me;
10
Dishonour defile me,
If e'er I beguile thee,
       My Eppie Adair!
              An' O, my Eppie, &c.
This is another example of an old song reworked by Burns.
Tune: Cameronian Rant
First printed in the S.M.M., Vol. 3, 2nd February, 1790.
O cam ye here the fight to shun,
came
       Or herd the sheep wi' me, man,
Or were ye at the Sherra-moor,
       Or did the battle see, man.
5
I saw the battle sair and teugh,
sore, tough
And reekin-red ran mony a sheugh,
bloody-red, ditch
My heart for fear gae sough for sough,
gave, sigh, sigh
To hear the thuds, and see the cluds
clouds
O' Clans frae woods, in tartan duds,
from, clothes
10
       Wha glaum'd at kingdoms three, man.
who grasped
The red-coat lads wi' black cockauds
Hanoverian cockades
       To meet them were na slaw, man,
not slow
They rush'd, and push'd, and blude outgush'd,
blood
       And mony a bouk did fa', man:
carcase, fall
15
The great Argyle led on his files,
I wat they glanc'd for twenty miles,
wot
They hough'd the Clans like nine-pin kyles,
mowed, skittles
They hack'd and hash'd while braid-swords clash'd,
broad-
And thro' they dash'd, and hew'd and smash'd,
20
       Till fey men dee'd awa, man.
doomed, died
But had ye seen the philibegs
kilts
       And skyrin tartan trews, man,
showy tight trousers
When in the teeth they daur'd our Whigs,
dared
       And Covenant Trueblues, man;
Covenanter flag
25
In lines extended lang and large,
long
When baiginets o'erpower'd the targe,
bayonets, shield
And thousands hasten'd to the charge;
Wi' Highland wrath they frae the sheath
from
Drew blades o' death, till out o' breath
30
       They fled like frighted dows, man.
doves
O how deil Tam can that be true,
devil
       The chase gaed frae the north, man;
went from
I saw mysel, they did pursue
       The horse-men back to Forth, man;
35
And at Dunblane in my ain sight
own
They took the brig wi' a' their might,
bridge
And straught to Stirling wing'd their flight,
straight
But, cursed lot! the gates were shut
And monie a huntit, poor Red-coat
hunted
40
For fear amaist did swarf, man.
almost swoon
My sister Kate cam up the gate
came
       Wi' crowdie unto me, man;
oatmeal and water
She swoor she saw some rebels run
swore
       To Perth and to Dundee, man:
45
Their left-hand General had nae skill;
no
The Angus lads had nae gude will
no, good
That day their neebours' blude to spill;
neighbours' blood
For fear by foes that they should lose
Their cogs o' brose, they scar'd at blows
wooden bowls of porridge
50
And hameward fast did flee, man.
homeward
They've lost some gallant gentlemen
       Amang the Highland clans, man;
among
I fear my Lord Panmure is slain,
       Or in his en'mies' hands, man:
55
Now wad ye sing this double flight,
would
Some fell for wrang, and some for right,
But mony bade the warld gudenight;
good-
Say pell and mell, wi' muskets' knell
How Tories fell, and Whigs to Hell
60
       Flew off in frighted bands, man.
This is adapted by Burns from the broadside written by Rev. John Barclay (1734â1798), founder of the Barclayites sect, which records an alleged conversation between two shepherds on the day of the battle of Sherriffmuir,
Dialogue Between Will Lick-Ladle and Tom
Clean-Cogue
. The battle occurred on 13th November 1715, when the Duke of Argyll led the Hanoverian crown troops, the men in black cockades (l. 11) against the white-cockaded Jacobites led by the Earl of Mar in a quite indecisive encounter.
Low follows Kinsley in commenting on the poem being composed âin the manner of traditional battle poetry' but this is profoundly to miss the tension between form and content because the poem's reductive vision is the implicit chaotic incoherence of both the perception and experience of battle. Stendhal remarked that âL'un des plus grandes poètes selon moi, aient paru dans ces derniers temps, c'est Robert Burns'. He had probably not read this song, but Burns's burlesquing manner in this mini-masterpiece prefigures Stendhal's own brilliant analysis of the subjective experience of battle in
The Charterhouse of Parma
. William Donaldson, remarking on Burns's ability to sustain a ânarrative of breathless pace, a headlong torrent of alliteration, assonance and internal rhyme', finely adds:
This amazing verbal tour de force has many admirable qualities: the effortlessly sustained illusion of eye-witness contemporaneity (we have to force ourselves to remember that the
events described happened more than thirty years before the poet was born); the concentration upon the common man and the human fallibility of the participants; the way in which the conventionally heroic is both indulged and debunked throughout.
This essentially reductive technique is seen at its clearest in the fifth verse, where the timely retreat of the Angus lads is attributed not only to the absence of military appetite, but to the presence of an appetite of a ridiculously different kind. Despite the dreadful strokes and rivers of blood, the overall effect is deeply comic.
Burns's power of characterisation produces a picture rooted in everyday realities, where the epic and mundane are ludicrously entangled and the proverbial cast of common speech is wielded with ruthlessly deflationary effect ⦠a burlesque of the conventionally heroic, which, in its refusal to consider men in the mass, dehumanised by uniforms or warlike array is fundamentally humane (pp. 83â4).