I wander my lane like a night-troubled ghaist, "O had she but been of a lower degree, We much admire the two first verses, which are well suited in style and sen. timent to a very beautiful and pathetic air; but we think that the rest of the song might, on the whole, have been dispensed with, or ought, at least, to have been remodeled. "A wooer like me maunna hope to come speed, The wounds I maun hide that will soon be my dead;" is clumsy and incongruous. "I sigh as my heart it would burst in my breast," does not please us, and seems to enfeeble a stanza that might have been very good. Somehow or other, a "sigh" is not at all a poetical thing, according to our Scotch customs or pronunciation. The last verse is positively bad. The question in proportion, or the rule of three, stated in the concluding lines, "O how past describing had then been my bliss, As now my distraction no words can express!" is much too formal and calculating, and is destitute of any felicity of thought or language. Of the same mixed character is the following: "O poortith cauld and restless love, An' 'twere na for my Jeanie. "O wha can prudence think upon, And sic a lassie by him? "How blest the humble cottar's fate! We like the first verse of this song; and, although the personification of Fate, taking "pleasure" in untwining life's dearest bands, is not in a style either of Doric simplicity or of Attic elegance, the chorus is redeemed by the touching, though perhaps not very coherent question: Why sae sweet a flower as Love should depend on Fortune's shining? The rest of the song we think is, on the whole, very inferior. Nothing can well be worse than the verse "Her een, sae bonnie blue, betray The next verse, " O wha can prudence think upon?" is vigorous and characteristic, though scarcely poetical. The song of " Gala Water" is simple and successful. The last verse has much in it of earnestness and beauty. "There's braw braw lads on Yarrow braes, That wander through the blooming hea- But Yarrow braes, nor Ettrick shaws, "But there is ane, a secret ane, " It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth, That coft contentment, peace, or plea sure; The bands and bliss o" mutual love, O that's the chiefest warld's treasure!" The living influences of those localities, that dwell in love's remembrance as the scenes of past happiness, or the lodestars of present solicitude, are fertile themes of lyrical poetry, and Burns well understood and familiarly availed himself of their power. Among the very sweetest of all his compositions is the following example of this topic, which opens in the most natural and touching strain; and, though not altogether equal, has much of simple beauty throughout : "Of a' the airts the wind can blaw, I dearly like the west, "There wild-woods grow, and rivers row, " I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair; I hear her in the tunefu' birds, I hear her charm the air: "There's not a bonnie flower that springs By fountain, shaw, or green, There's not a bonnie bird that sings, But minds me o' my Jean. "O blaw ye westlin winds, blaw saft And bring the lassie back to me Perhaps a still more exquisite and impassioned expression of the same feeling, is shown in a couple of verses to be found in Johnson's Museum "Out over the Forth, I look to the north, But what is the north and its Highlands to me? The south nor the east gie ease to my breast, The far foreign land, nor the wide rolling sea. But I look to the west, when I gae to rest, That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be; For far in the west lives he I lo'e best, The lad that is dear to my babie and me." Never, surely, was the religion of devoted love more truly, more warmly expressed than in these few but magical lines. We may observe, by the way, that, although furnished less formally and less responsibly, the contri butions of Burns to the Museum were often more racy and more spirited than those which were written for Mr Thomson's Collection. In the Museum, for instance, appeared the noble song which we are about to quote, and of which one half stanza would of itself have preserved the name of Burns throughout all time; and would more than compensate, not only for the inequalities of the other lines, though they had been infinitely greater, but for all the commonplaces which Mr Thomson was fain to accept as true poetry : "Ae fond kiss, and then we sever! " I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy, "Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest! Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, In the Museum, also, we have " The Posie," which was adopted by Thomson; and which, for its union of the two best and purest affections of the heart--the love of woman and of rural nature-deserves all the praise that it has ever received_ "O luve will venture in where it daurna weel be seen, O luve will venture in where wisdom ance has been ; But I will down yon river rove, amang the fields sae green, "The primrose I will pu,' the firstling of the year, "I'll pu' the budding rose, when Phœbus peeps in view, "The lily it is pure, and the lily it is fair, And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. "The hawthorn I will pu,' wi' its locks o' siller gray, And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. "The woodbine I will pu' when the evening star is near, "I'll tie the posie round wi' the silken bands o' luve, And this will be a posie to my ain dear May." The last, it would appear, of Burns's communications to the Museum, was the song of Mally's meek, Mally'ssweet," which, in some respects homely enough, has yet much to recommend it. idea in the last stanza might have been better brought out, but it has the fire of genius "Her yellow hair, beyond compare, The Comes trinkling down her swan-white neck; And her two eyes, like stars in skies, Would keep a sinking ship fraewreck." Is not this a vivid expression of the power of beauty over the darkness and the storms of life? Do we not here see at a glance, as in a dream not difficult to be interpreted, a tempestuous sea, and a labouring vessel with despairing mariners; and then, amidst the severing clouds, a vision of those " lucida sidera," those Ledæan twins, "Quorum simul alba nautis Stella refulsit Defluit saxis agitatus humor It would extend this article beyond the length of a midsummer's day, if we were to review all the songs of Burns which are entitled to admiration. Why should we set down the imperishable verses of " Auld Langsyne," which every reader worth addressing can repeat, as if they were printed before his eyes? or why add a "perfume to the violet," by bestowing on them a vague and unmeaning praise, or attempting to point out beauties that are obvious to all? Why should we notice many other songs to which the observations we have already made may with suitable changes be easily transferred?-some of them being almost unexceptionably beautiful, but the most part chequered with a mixture of error and defect amidst their pervading excellences. We have always greatly admired the comic songs of Burns, but it is not our intention to enter here on a detailed examination of them. Such compositions do not equally challenge or call for criticism as more serious attempts, and it would not be so easy to find room for observation upon them. Burns's genius was as well adapted for the ludicrous as for the pathetic, and his command of appropriate vernacular language for ludicrous subjects was peculiarly great. Instead of offering the commonplace "Ce rocher immense s'éleve dans la mer qui borde le comté où Burns est né." "Ce que signifie cette locution, n'est pas exprimé chez nous d'une manière aussi * " Il est inutile d'expliquer le sens de cette phrase proverbiale." observations that could alone occur to us here, we shall conclude this article by laying before our readers some of our poet's comic effusions in a foreign dress, which may at once amuse by its novelty, and help us to judge of their intrinsic merits, and to form a conjecture as to the ideas regarding them which may be acquired by those who are total strangers to the language in which they are written. Our extracts are taken from a small and rather scarce volume, published at Paris in 1826, and bearing the following title: "Morceaux Choisis de Burns, Poète Ecossais; Traduits par MM. James Aytoun et J. B. Mesnard." The Monsieur James Aytoun who has a share in these translations is no other, we believe, than the very amiable DUNCAN GRAY. "Duncan Gray came here to woo, Ha, ha, the wooing o't; "Duncan fleech'd and Duncan pray'd, "Time and chance are but a tide, Ha, ha, the wooing o't: Slighted love is sair to bide, Ha, ha, the wooing o't: Ha, ha, the wooing o't. "How it comes, let doctors tell, *" Marguerite." person with whom our townsmen are well acquainted as a member of the Scottish Bar, and as having on at least one occasion come forward as a candidate for the representation of Edinburgh. The work contains translations, all of them in prose, of several of Burns's best pieces, both serious and comic, including " The Cottar's Saturday Night," and "Tam o' Shanter." But we confine our quotations to one or two of the comic songs, as most in accordance with our own plan, and most likely to interest and amuse our readers. We refrain from making any comment whatever on the translations, except here and there to print in italics some of the passages which appear the most striking. We place the original and the translation opposite to each other: decente." |