THE EWE-BUGHTS, MARION.[6]
Oh, mind ye the ewe-bughts, my Marion?
It was ther I forgather'd wi' thee;
The sun smiled sweet ower the mountain,
And saft sough'd the leaf on the tree.
Thou wast fair, thou wast bonnie, my Marion,
And lovesome thy rising breast-bane;
The dew sat in gems ower thy ringlets,
By the thorn when we were alane.
There we loved, there thou promised, my Marion,
Thy soul—a' thy beauties were mine;
Crouse we skipt to the ha' i' the gloamin',
But few were my slumbers and thine.
Fell war tore me lang frae thee, Marion,
Lang wat'ry and red was my e'e;
The pride o' the field but inflamed me
To return mair worthy o' thee.
Oh, aye art thou lovely, my Marion,
Thy heart bounds in kindness to me;
And here, oh, here is my bosom,
That languish'd, my Marion, for thee.
LADY ANNE BARNARD.
Lady Anne Lindsay was the eldest of a family of eight sons and three daughters, born to James, Earl of Balcarres, by his spouse, Anne Dalrymple, a daughter of Sir Robert Dalrymple, of Castleton, Bart. She was born at Balcarres, in Fife, on the 8th of December 1750. Inheriting a large portion of the shrewdness long possessed by the old family of Lindsay, and a share of talent from her mother, who was a person of singular energy, though somewhat capricious in temper, Lady Anne evinced, at an early age, an uncommon amount of sagacity. Fortunate in having her talents well directed, and naturally inclined towards the acquisition of learning, she soon began to devote herself to useful reading, and even to literary composition. The highly popular ballad of "Auld Robin Gray" was written when she had only attained her twenty-first year. According to her own narrative, communicated to Sir Walter Scott, she had experienced loneliness on the marriage of her younger sister, who accompanied her husband to London, and had sought relief from a state of solitude by attempting the composition of song. An old Scottish melody,[7] sung by an eccentric female, an attendant on Lady Balcarres, was connected with words unsuitable to the plaintive nature of the air; and, with the design of supplying the defect, she formed the idea of writing "Auld Robin Gray." The hero of the ballad was the old herdsman at Balcarres. To the members of her own family Lady Anne only communicated her new ballad—scrupulously concealing the fact of her authorship from others, "perceiving the shyness it created in those who could write nothing."