[The poet’s eye was on Polly Stewart, but his mind seems to have been with Charlie Stewart, and the Jacobite ballads, when he penned these words;—they are in the Museum.]
I.
O lovely Polly Stewart!
O charming Polly Stewart!
There’s not a flower that blooms in May
That’s half so fair as thou art.
The flower it blaws, it fades and fa’s,
And art can ne’er renew it;
But worth and truth eternal youth
Will give to Polly Stewart.
II.
May he whose arms shall fauld thy charms
Possess a leal and true heart;
To him be given to ken the heaven
He grasps in Polly Stewart.
O lovely Polly Stewart!
O charming Polly Stewart!
There’s ne’er a flower that blooms in May
That’s half so sweet as thou art.
CLXV.
THE HIGHLAND LADDIE.
Tune—“If thou’lt play me fair play.”
[A long and wearisome ditty, called “The Highland Lad and Lowland Lassie,” which Burns compressed into these stanzas, for Johnson’s Museum.]