Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

Share page


326	OUR FAMILIAR SONGS.

Then ilk thing around us was blithesome and cheerie, Then ilk thing around us was bonnie and braw; Now naething is heard but the wind whistling drearie, And naething is seen but the wide-spreading snaw; The trees are a' bare, and the birds mute and dowie, — They shake the cauld drift frae their wings as they flee; And chirp out their plaints, seeming wae for my Johnnie,— 'Tis winter wi' them and 'tis winter wi' me.		Yon cauld, fleecy cloud skiffs alang the bleak mountain, And shakes the dark firs on the steep, rocky brae, While down the deep glen brawls the snaw-flooded fountain, That murmured sae sweet to my laddie and me; It's na the loud roar, on the wintry winds swellin', It's na the cauld blast brings the tear to my ee; For, O! gin I saw but my bonnie Scot's callan The dark days o' winter were simmer to me.
THE BUSH ABOON TRAQUAIR. This song was written by Robert Crawford, a Scottish author of considerable learning and importance, who wrote " Down the Burn, Davie, Love." " The Bush Aboon Tra-quair" was first pubMshed in Eamsay's "Tea-Table Miscellany," in 1724, and afterward, with the music, in the " Orpheus Caledonius." The exquisite opening melody in Boildieu's opera of " La Dame Blanche," is this sweet old Scottish air. It is in remembrance of this melody that Dr. Moir, the " Delta" of Blackwood, says: " In realms beyond the separating sea, The plaided exile, 'neath the evening star, Thinking of Scotland, scarce forbears to weep."