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The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to e'e,

While my gudeman lies sound by me.

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dee;

And why was I born to say, Wae's me!

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Young Jamie lo 'ed me weel, and sought me for I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin; his bride;

But saving a croun he had naething else beside; To make the croun a pund, young Jamie gaed to sea;

And the croun and the pund were baith for me.

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He hadna been awa' a week but only twa, When my father brak his arm, and the cow was stown29 awa';

My mother she fell sick,-and my Jamie at the

sea

And auld Robin Gray came a-courtin' me.

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My father couldna work, and my mother couldna spin;

I toiled day and night, but their bread 1 couldna win;

Auld Rob maintained them baith, and wi' tears in his e'e

Said, "Jennie, for their sakes, O, marry me!"'

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My heart it said nay; I looked for Jamie back;
But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was
a wrack;

His ship it was a wrack-why didna Jamie dee?
Or why do I live to cry, Wae's me!

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My father urged me sair: my mother didna speak;

But she looked in my face till my heart was like to break:

They gi'ed him my hand, tho' my heart was in

the sea;

Sae auld Robin Gray he was gudeman to me.

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1 hadna been a wife a week but only four, When mournfu' as I sat on the stane at the door,

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I saw my Jamie's wraith,-for I couldna think it he,

Till he said, "I'm come hame to marry thee."

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O sair, sair did we greet,30 and mickle31 say of a';

We took but ae kiss, and I bade him gang

awa';

29 stolen

30 cry

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31 much (or possibly 3 knolls
"little")

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My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise; †
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene,
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways,
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier
there, I ween!

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November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;1
The short 'ning winter day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black 'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter2 frae his labour goes,—
This night his weekly moils is at an end,—
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does
hameward bend.

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me

6 fire-place or fire

7 anxiety

8 by and by

9 drive

10 heedful

that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, 'Let us worship God,' used by a decent, sober head of a family, introducing family worship. Το this sentiment of the author, the world is indebted for The Cotter's Saturday Night. The cotter is an exact copy of my father, in his manners, his family devotion, and exhortations; yet the other parts of the description do not apply to our family. None of us were 'at service out among the farmers roun'. Instead of our depositing our 'sairwon penny-fee' with our parents, my father laboured hard, and lived with the most rigid economy, that he might be able to keep his children at home." Mr. J. L. Robertson, commenting on the fact that more than half the poem is in English, says: "An unusually elevated or serious train of thought in the mind of a Scottish peasant seems to demand for its expression the use of a speech which one may describe as Sabbath Scotch." Alken was not only a patron, but a genuine friend. of Burns.

A cannie11 errand to a neibor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw12 new
gown,

Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,

What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave,

Weel-pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.22

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O happy love! where love like this is found!

To help her parents dear, if they in hard-O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! ship be.

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I've paced much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare,"If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,

One cordial in this melancholy vale, "Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale.''

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And "Let us worship God!" he says with The Pow 'r, incens 'd, the pageant will desert, solemn air.

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They chant their artless notes in simple guise,
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee's' wild-warbling measures
rise,

Or plaintive Martyrs,' worthy of the name;
Or noble 'Elgin' beets11 the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:
Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame:
The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's
praise.

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The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard12 did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well-pleas'd, the language of the
soul;

And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enrol.

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Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest;
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clam 'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow 'ry pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine
preside.

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From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,

That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,

Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. "An honest man's the noblest work of

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Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heav'n the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay His head:
How His first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he,13 who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by Heav'n's command.

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Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,
That thus they all shall meet in future days,
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear,

God; ''15

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O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide
That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted heart,

While circling Time moves round in an eter- Who dar'd to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
nal sphere.

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Or nobly die, the second glorious part,— (The patriot's God peculiarly thou art, Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)

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