She put her hand up to her head,
Where were the ribbons many;
She rave them a', let them down fa',
And straightway ran to Gamery.60
She sought it up, she sought it down,
Till she was wet and weary;
And in the middle part o' it,
There she got her deary.
Then she stroak'd back his yellow hair,65
And kiss'd his mou' sae comely;
"My mother's heart's be as wae as thine;
We'se baith asleep in the water o' Gamery."
ANNAN WATER.
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 282.
"The following verses are the original words of the tune of Allan Water, by which name the song is mentioned in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany. The ballad is given from tradition; and it is said that a bridge over the Annan, was built in consequence of the melancholy catastrophe which it narrates. Two verses are added in this edition, from another copy of the ballad, in which the conclusion proves fortunate. By the Gatehope-Slack, is perhaps meant the Gate-Slack, a pass in Annandale. The Annan, and the Frith of Solway, into which it falls, are the frequent scenes of tragical accidents. The Editor trusts he will be pardoned for inserting the following awfully impressive account of such an event, contained in a letter from Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, by whose correspondence, while in the course of preparing these volumes for the press, he has been alike honoured and instruct
ed. After stating that he had some recollection of the ballad which follows, the biographer of Burns proceeds thus:—'I once in my early days heard (for it was night, and I could not see) a traveller drowning; not in the Annan itself, but in the Frith of Solway, close by the mouth of that river. The influx of the tide had unhorsed him, in the night, as he was passing the sands from Cumberland. The west wind blew a tempest, and, according to the common expression, brought in the water three foot a-breast. The traveller got upon a standing net, a little way from the shore. There he lashed himself to the post, shouting for half an hour for assistance—till the tide rose over his head! In the darkness of the night, and amid the pauses of the hurricane, his voice, heard at intervals, was exquisitely mournful. No one could go to his assistance—no one knew where he was—the sound seemed to proceed from the spirit of the waters. But morning rose—the tide had ebbed—and the poor traveller was found lashed to the pole of the net, and bleaching in the wind.'"