TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Burns, says Cromek, acknowledged that a refined and accomplished woman was a being all but new to him till he went to Edinburgh, and received letters from Mrs. Dunlop.]
Ellisland, 17th December, 1791.
Many thanks to you, Madam, for your good news respecting the little floweret and the mother-plant. I hope my poetic prayers have been heard, and will be answered up to the warmest sincerity of their fullest extent; and then Mrs. Henri will find her little darling the representative of his late parent, in everything but his abridged existence.
I have just finished the following song, which to a lady the descendant of Wallace—and many heroes of his true illustrious line—and herself the mother of several soldiers, needs neither preface nor apology.
Scene—a field of battle—time of the day, evening; the wounded and dying of the victorious army are supposed to join in the following
SONG OF DEATH.
Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies
Now gay with the bright setting sun;
Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties—
Our race of existence is run!
The circumstance that gave rise to the foregoing verses was, looking over with a musical friend M’Donald’s collection of Highland airs, I was struck with one, an Isle of Skye tune, entitled “Oran and Aoig, or, The Song of Death,” to the measure of which I have adapted my stanzas. I have of late composed two or three other little pieces, which, ere yon full-orbed moon, whose broad impudent face now stares at old mother earth all night, shall have shrunk into a modest crescent, just peeping forth at dewy dawn, I shall find an hour to transcribe for you. A Dieu je vous commende.
R. B.