[177] 191 drumlie, muddy: birk, birch.
[178] 192 greet, cry: daurna, dare not.—There can hardly exist a poem more truly tragic in the highest sense than this: nor, perhaps, Sappho excepted, has any Poetess equalled it.
[180] 193 fou, merry with drink: coost, carried: unco skeigh, very proud: gart, forced: abeigh, aside: Ailsa craig, a rock in the Firth of Clyde: grat his een bleert, cried till his eyes were bleared: lowpin, leaping: linn, waterfall: sair, sore: smoor'd, smothered: crouse and canty, blithe and gay.
[181] 194 Burns justly named this 'one of the most beautiful songs in the Scots or any other language.' One stanza, interpolated by Beattie, is here omitted:—it contains two good lines, but is out of harmony with the original poem. Bigonet, little cap: probably altered from béguinette: thraw, twist: caller, fresh.
[182] 195 Burns himself, despite two attempts, failed to improve this little absolute masterpiece of music, tenderness, and simplicity: this 'Romance of a life' in eight lines.—Eerie: strictly, scared: uneasy.
[183] 196 airts, quarters: row, roll: shaw, small wood in a hollow, spinney: knowes, knolls. The last two stanzas are not by Burns.
[184] 197 jo, sweetheart: brent, smooth: pow, head.
— 198 leal, faithful. St. 3 fain, happy.
[185] 199 Henry VI founded Eton.
[188] 200 Written in 1773, towards the beginning of Cowper's second attack of melancholy madness—a time when he altogether gave up prayer, saying, 'For him to implore mercy would only anger God the more.' Yet had he given it up when sane, it would have been 'maior insania.'