HALLOWEEN AND THE LOVE-SONGS OF SCOTLAND.

Evening Star, Issue 13092, 27 October 1908, Page 4

HALLOWEEN AND THE LOVE-SONGS OF SCOTLAND.

Clime of the barren brow and rugged face— • ■. Scotland!—l love thee for thy deathless .songs. —Bracken. , (By W. 8.) When warm-hearted Thomas Bracken penned the^above lines lie expressed the feelings of many— who have never seen Scotland, and perhaps some of those who are Aiblins thrang a parliamentin' Fpr Britain's guid their sauls indentin', will envy the Rev. Mr Aitken on. Friday night. What a fine theme for a- good speaker—the love songs of Scotland—the songs of that old, rugged, heather-clad land far surpass those of any other country in number and beauty. "Scotland owes much toher song-writers, who have fanned the patriotic spirit of her sons and daughters, and left imperishable records of her gallant struggles for liberty, and wordpaintings of her romantic scenery which will never fade. Wherever we happen to be, "tha banks and braes o' Bonnie Doon" and many other places will aye bloom "fresh and fair." If the fauna and flora of Scotland were ever to become extinct, thj bloom of the flowers and the melodies of the birds would not be for There's not a bonnie flower that springs By fountain, shaw, or green; There's not a bonnie bird that sings, but is embalmed in a never-fading setting of beautiful song. Some seasonable gems may be quoted : Now Nature hangs her mantle green On every blooming tree, And Spreads her sheets o' daisies white Out o'er the grassy lea. Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn Aloft on dewy wing. At dawn, when every grassy blade Hangs with a diamond at* its head. The merle, in his noontide bower, Makes woodland echoes ring. Ye wild, whistling blackbirds In yon thorny den thou mellow mavis, that halls the nightfa'. The snowdrap and primrose our woodlands adorn, And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn. Ye little harebells o'er the lea; Ye stately foxgloves fair to see; Ye woodbines hanging bonnielie In scented bowers; Ye roses on your thorny tree, The first o' How org. In days when daisies deck the ground, And blackbirds whistle clear, With honest joy our hearts will bound To view tho coming year. To the poetic eye and ear flowers doubtless bloom fairer," birds sing sweeter, and women are lovelier than to others. Some visitors to Scotland say that they were rather disappointed to "iind the hills and glens not so grand, and even "the lassies" not quite so bonnie as they expected. But they had not "the seeing eye." A little boy %vas once taken by his mother to see Mrs Burns- when die was advanced in years, and, after staring hard at her for some" time, he said: " Are you Burns's '.Bonnie Jean'!r" She replied: "Aye, laddie; I'm a' that's left o' her noo.' "Ye ken I was young then, and he thocht me bonnie, and made muckle wark aboot me." She would not know the verse of Beranger, the Burns of France: When you are old. my darling; when falls the shades of night, And 'your dear ones gather round you in the fireside's light, You then will tell them of me, as thus my songs you've sung, "I'was thus, and thus he praised me in the days when I was young. Scotland's poets have sung sweetlv of her romantic scenery, but the old, old story is the favorite theme, for " lovers anc\. love never die." And the love songs of Scotland are sung all over the world; they have a wide range, from the pathoa and tenderness of such lilts as '0 wert thou in the cauld blast?' 'Bonnie Doon,' 'John Anderson, my Jo,' to the humor of such as 'The Laird o' Cockpen' and 'Duncan Gray.' No more appropriate, theme could be chosen by a speaker for a Halloween gathering, as that i 6 an occasion when those mystic forces which have a good deal to do with love and matchmaking are particularly active.