The Lasses
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n the best work of the world’s most representative poet, every word can sound like an effusion of pure spirit.And who could mistake Burns’s genius when they encounter his beautiful lyric ‘Green Grow the Rashes’? He once introduced it by saying the song was written in ‘the genuine language of my heart’. A hymn to spontaneous affection over worldly desires, there is nothing else like it. I once knew a retired Ayrshire sailor, Mr Savage. I remember him singing this song one morning as he made his way along the seafront in the town of Saltcoats. The Firth of Clyde appeared to calm itself at the sound of the old man’s voice, as he sang this lilting memorial to a great and simple sentiment.
I
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Green Grow the Rashes chorus Green grow the rashes, O; Green grow the rashes, O; The sweetest hours that e’er I spend, Are spent amang the lasses, O.
There’s nought but care on ev’ry han’, In ev’ry hour that passes, O: What signifies the life o’ man, An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O. Green grow, &c.
The warly race may riches chase, An’ riches still may fly them, O; An’ tho’ at last they catch them fast, Their hearts can ne’er enjoy them, O. Green grow, &c.
But gie me a canny hour at e’en, My arms about my Dearie, O; An’ warly cares, an’ warly men, May a’ gae tapsalteerie, O! Green grow, &c.
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For you sae douse, ye sneer at this, Ye’re nought but senseless asses, O: The wisest Man the warl’ saw, He dearly lov’d the lasses, O. Green grow, &c.
Auld Nature swears, the lovely Dears Her noblest work she classes, O: Her prentice han’ she try’d on man, An’ then she made the lasses, O. Green grow, &c.
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ne can practically see the yellow light at the window of the dance-hall and feel the pulse of romantic hope, a new and lively element in the blood. And here she is, Mary Morison – as ‘the dance gaed through the lighted ha’’ – and we are caught immediately in the drama of her specialness. There is a grave in Mauchline churchyard to ‘the poet’s bonnie Mary Morison, who died on 29 June 1791, aged 20’. Mary is a ghost among the drinking glasses, yet forever alive in the flow of these images.
O
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Mary Morison O Mary, at thy window be, It is the wish’d, the trysted hour; Those smiles and glances let me see, That make the miser’s treasure poor: How blythely wad I bide the stoure, A weary slave frae sun to sun; Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison!
Yestreen when to the trembling string The dance gaed through the lighted ha’, To thee my fancy took its wing, I sat, but neither heard, nor saw: Though this was fair, and that was braw, And yon the toast of a’ the town, I sigh’d, and said amang them a’, ‘Ye are na Mary Morison.’
O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, Wha for thy sake wad gladly die! Or canst thou break that heart of his, Whase only faute is loving thee! If love for love thou wilt na gie, At least be pity to me shown; A thought ungentle canna be The thought o’ Mary Morison.
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wrote part of my first novel, Our Fathers, in the west of Ireland, alone in a house by the sea in County Cork. After dark, a regular beam of light from the Fastnet lighthouse would fall over the bed and I woke there one night with a weathered thought. It was to do with the Irish who had left for Scotland years before. I went back to my desk and wrote some lines about the main character’s father, Tam. He ‘once wrote a letter to a cousin in Ireland, saying that he only stuck to the farm because of Robert Burns. “My habits are bad in the field,” he wrote, “but never mind, there’s something to see in the battle for stuff over here, with the thought of the poet’s hand there beside you.”’ Tam then goes to the Ayrshire madhouse at Glengall and sings ‘The Belles of Mauchline’ to his sick wife, and he kisses her.
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The Belles of Mauchline In Mauchline there dwells six proper young Belles, The pride of the place and its neighbourhood a’, Their carriage and dress a stranger would guess, In Lon’on or Paris they’d gotten it a’: Miss Miller is fine, Miss Murkland’s divine, Miss Smith she has wit and Miss Betty is braw; There’s beauty and fortune to get wi’ Miss Morton, But Armour’s the jewel for me o’ them a’.—
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urns had intended to emigrate with Mary Campbell to Jamaica, but she died in Greenock before they could leave. Each of Burns’s lasses has a skirl of the country dance-hall about her and a scent of the Ayrshire fields, but not Mary. We imagine her spirit mingled with high foreign hopes and sea salt, caught up in the Atlantic roar.
B
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Will Ye Go to the Indies, My Mary? Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave auld Scotia’s shore; Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, Across th’ Atlantic roar.
O sweet grows the lime and the orange And the apple on the pine; But a’ the charms o’ the Indies Can never equal thine.
I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary, I hae sworn by the Heavens to be true; And sae may the Heavens forget me, When I forget my vow!
O plight me your faith, my Mary, And plight me your lily-white hand; O plight me your faith, my Mary, Before I leave Scotia’s strand.
We hae plighted our truth, my Mary, In mutual affection to join: And curst be the cause that shall part us, The hour, and the moment o’ time!!!
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love poem is a sudden encounter with one’s own capacity for wonder; it is a settlement of joy amid the complications of affection. ‘A lyric poem,’ writes James Fenton, ‘expresses an intense feeling of the moment. It is all about the subjective, all about the here and now. It is not – alas, for the loved one – a contract, or a prenuptial agreement.’
A
Of A’ the Airts Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw, I dearly like the West; For there the bony Lassie lives, The Lassie I lo’e best: There’s wild-woods grow, and rivers row, And mony a hill between; But day and night my fancy’s flight Is ever wi’ my Jean.—
I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair; I hear her in the tunefu’ birds, I hear her charm the air: There’s not a bony flower, that springs By fountain, shaw, or green; There’s not a bony bird that sings But minds me o’ my Jean.—
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once sang this song in a gymnasium filled to the summit of the wall bars with tittering Ayrshire schoolchildren. It was St Luke’s Primary School in the spring of 1978, and Mrs Ferguson, the headmistress, had decided there was only one boy for the job. I can still see my blushing face beside the old piano, and Fergie’s vaguely nationalistic smile as she thumped the keys and nodded me in with a skoosh of pride. It wasn’t entirely easy – aged ten – to conjure up my troubles with the saucy lasses, but from the corner of my eye I saw the girls coming into the gym ready for Jacqueline Thompson’s ballet class, due to begin as soon as the Burns was over. The lasses were all hair-buns and slipperettes, and I know my voice lifted and reached out to meet the loveliness of their wicked faces.
I
My Love She’s but a Lassie Yet My love she’s but a lassie yet, My love she’s but a lassie yet; We’ll let her stand a year or twa, She’ll no be half sae saucy yet.—
I rue the day I sought her O, I rue the day I sought her O, Wha gets her needs na say he’s woo’d, But he may say he’s bought her O.—
Come draw a drap o’ the best o’t yet, Come draw a drap o’ the best o’t yet: Gae seek for Pleasure whare ye will, But here I never misst it yet.—
We’re a’ dry wi’ drinkin o’t, We’re a’ dry wi’ drinkin o’t: The minister kisst the fidler’s wife, He could na preach for thinkin o’t.—
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obert Burns saw love as an expression of natural freedom, but he understood well enough that it might also be experienced as a mode of performance. In Edinburgh, he fell for a married lady, Agnes McLehose, or Nancy, who lived alone in Potter Row, and he turned their brief affair into a sometimes rapturous drama of drawing-room manners. They took arcadian names, Clarinda and Sylvander, and played their respective parts in a way that offered no great insult to sincerity. ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ is proof of that: the final stanza, said Walter Scott, ‘contains the essence of a thousand love tales’.
R
Ae Fond Kiss Ae fond kiss, and then we sever; Ae fareweel, and then for ever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.—
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him, While the star of hope she leaves him: Me, nae chearful twinkle lights me; Dark despair around benights me.—
I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy, Naething could resist my Nancy: But to see her, was to love her; Love but her, and love for ever.—
Had we never lov’d sae kindly, Had we never lov’d sae blindly! Never met—or never parted, We had ne’er been broken-hearted.—
Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest! Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest! Thine be ilka joy and treasure, Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!—
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Ae fond kiss, and then we sever! Ae fareweel, Alas, for ever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.—
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