An’ its wuddes are fayre to see.
Its auld Ha’ house ’mang the chestnut trees
In statelye beautye stan’s;
But I wadna gaen backe by the burne that nychte
For Ha’ Dykes an’ a’ its lan’s.
“THE FARMERS’ WIVES O’ ANNANDALE.”
Being shown, at Lockerbie, a printed programme of after-dinner proceedings at the celebration there of Mr. R. Jardine’s marriage, the writer noticed in the list the sentence that heads this page, and enquired if it were a toast or a song. When told it was the former, he said it deserved to be a song; and, acting on his own hint, crooned out the following verses on his homeward journey by rail.
The farmers’ wives o’ Annandale!
Gude haud them bein an’ braw;