Return again, fair Lesley,
Return to Caledonie;
That we may brag, we hae a lass
There’s nane again sae bonnie.
CLXXXII.
HIGHLAND MARY.
Tune—“Katherine Ogie.”
[Mary Campbell, of whose worth and beauty Burns has sung with such deep feeling, was the daughter of a mariner, who lived in Greenock. She became acquainted with the poet while on service at the castle of Montgomery, and their strolls in the woods and their roaming trysts only served to deepen and settle their affections. Their love had much of the solemn as well as of the romantic: on the day of their separation they plighted their mutual faith by the exchange of Bibles: they stood with a running-stream between them, and lifting up water in their hands vowed love while woods grew and waters ran. The Bible which the poet gave was elegantly bound: ‘Ye shall not swear by my name falsely,’ was written in the bold Mauchline hand of Burns, and underneath was his name, and his mark as a freemason. They parted to meet no more: Mary Campbell was carried off suddenly by a burning fever, and the first intimation which the poet had of her fate, was when, it is said, he visited her friends to meet her on her return from Cowal, whither she had gone to make arrangements for her marriage. The Bible is in the keeping of her relations: we have seen a lock of her hair; it was very long and very bright, and of a hue deeper than the flaxen. The song was written for Thomson’s work.]
I.
Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
The castle o’ Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There Simmer first unfauld her robes,
And there the langest tarry;
For there I took the last farewell
O’ my sweet Highland Mary.
II.
How sweetly bloom’d the gay green birk,
How rich the hawthorn’s blossom,
As underneath their fragrant shade
I clasp’d her to my bosom!
The golden hours, on angel wings,
Flew o’er me and my dearie;
For dear to me, as light and life,
Was my sweet Highland Mary!