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Otago Witness, Issue 2408, 26 April 1900, Page 64

THE SONGS OF SCOTLAND.

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Bx Jessie s'lackay.

I— SONGS OF FOLK WISDOM.

No writing mirrors the very innerne&s of a nation more accurately than the plain folk-songs that seem to well out of the common life. In most countries many of tha best of such are the work of bards who have left but a name, if as much, to later days ; this dissociation from an individual marking them more -truly as the veritable breath of the Zeifc Geist blowing over the mind of a people as the wind waves the corn.

A number of travellers have followed Dr Johnson's leading, and discovered nothing special in the Scottish climate but fog, nothing special in tho diet but half-cooked oatmeal, and nothing special in the peasantry but dourneps and dirt. Such critics can only appreciate a Scot proportionally as he is not a Scot, venison as it resembles mutton, and poetry as it expresses the bourgeois domesticity of Clapham. If they fail to understand " A wee bh'd cam' to oor ha' door," they aie as absolutely tonedeaf to the quintessence of English song, — to the " sea nymphs that hourly ring the knell," and to Jean Ingelow's dainty murmurmurings of "King cup and daffodilly."

Most outsidei's allow that Scottish songs are social, pathetic, martial ; basing these conclusions respectively on " Auld lang syne," " Ye banks and braes," and " Scots wha ha." But outsiders do not know that they also reflect every phase of thought that comes under the impressionism of true song-writing. In briefly considering this subject it will not be amiss to go off the beatea track of love, hilarity, and war, and glance at a few that seem more particularly the echoes of folk wisdom, showing the firm equipoise of a strong, quiet people.

It is not surprising that a people who in the seventeenth century set up the nearest approach to atlieocraey 'known in modern times should show a strong religious spirit even in their lightest didat-tic poetry. The sweet old soiig "Ilka blade o' grass " is a good example. For pure pathos the Irish " Fairy boy " and "' mother's Lament " can rival any on earth ; for pure jollity "Garry Owen" and "St. Patrick's Day " cannot be excelled ; for the breezy delight of strength and motion some of the English hunting songs can hold their own anywhere, notably " John Peel " : but only a Scot could write, and, moi cover, match with music : —

Confide ye aye in Providence, fov Providence

is kind, And beai ye a' life's changes wi' a cairn and

constant mind. Though pressed an' hemmed on eveiy side,

hae faith an' yell win through, For ilka Hade o' grass keeps its am drap o'

In this connection one naturally, thinks of Mary M'lntyre's song, " Time, ' in the "Antiquary,"' though I am uncertain that it was ever actually sex, to music : —

Why sit'st thou by that ruined hall, Thou ajjed earlf so stern and grey? Dost thou its ioimer piide recall, Or ponder how it passed away? Redeem the space, mine horns are briqf, WhiLe in the glass my sand grains shiver, For measureless thy joy or grief When Time and thou shall part lor ever. The whole poem has the solemn simphcity of a church bell. Again, lcok at "Eothesav Bay," one of the v gems with which Dinah Aluloch enriched the lyric pages o£ Scotland .- — O, I had ance a true love,

jSToo I hae nane ava : An' I had three braw brithers, Exit 1 hae tint them a. It's a bonnie day i' the morning, An' bonnier at the noon ; But bonniest, when Iho sun draps, An' red conies up the moon, — When the mist creeps oure the Cumbrays, An' Arran peaks are grey ; An' the great black hills like sleeping kings,

Sit grand round Rothesay Bay. Then a wee- sigh stirs "my bosom,

An' a wee tear Mill's my e'e, An' I think o' that far courttiy

Whaur I wad like to be. Biib I rise content i' the mcrning, An' wark while wark I may I' the yellow cornfields o' ArcTbeg, - Aboon sweet Rothcsay Bay.

Many an English lassio ccrald echo the calm resignation, the simple faith of the&e lines. But where is the English lassie who, in one sweeping touch, could fortify her spirit with the dark royalty of the sleeping Cumbrays?

These singers, from a full heart, deal "pensively, but not despairingly, with. the ebb tide of life. Lady Nairn's sNng, " Would you be young again ?" set to the tune of "Robin Adair," answers the title question with a firm negative in stately English, while the same sentiment is put in the homely vernacular at the head of one of Dinah Muloch's well-known series, " A Woman's Thoughts About Women," in Chambers's Journal : — Do ye think o' the days that are gane, Jeanie, As ye sit by your fire at night? is asked^by the husband with a grave gentleness, and again he asks : — Do " ye think o' the friends that are gane,

jcanie ?

One can see the grand, old, furrowed face lit by the kindly firelight as she answers frankly : —

Yes, a But the bravest and best o' them a', Kobin, I hae never wished back again. For to these simple folk the Unseen was very near ; the " abysses and eternities '.' of Neo Platonism and its later phases practically did net exist for them ; and what was was ever best.

But no less characteristic is the lighter vein of the didactic, which reaches its zenith in " A man's a- man for a' that " ; — The rank is but the guinea stamp, A man's a man ion a' that.

Also when Socialism was a struggling babe, and Fabian societies were unheard of, a Scottish bard could stand on the bedrock of human brotherhood and proclaim : —

We're a' John Tanison's bairns!

A cheery optimism, whose deeper shade is branded jingoism in our day, breaks out in " >Sac will we yet ' : — When the hoose is rinnin' round aboofc, It's time enough to flit, "When we fa' we a3 r e get up again, An' sac will we yet. One has a whimsical vision of Messrs Stead and Labouchere caught in the whirling eddies of the old lilt, and footing it unwillingly to the last couplet : — Britain's aye been victorious, An' sac will she yet.

A nameless hero has ca,ught the true gleam of the artist's armour in his story of false friends and fickle fortune. At every fresh vicissitude he says stolidly :

I tuned my pipes mcl pleased myself, With " John o' Badenyou."

It is rather remarkable that a nation credited with a firm grip of the pursestrhigs should satirise mammonism so unmercifully in song. In " Tibbie, I hae seen the day " the singer admonishes his snobbish, whilom ladylove : — .

But, Tibbie lass, tak' nay advice, Your daddy's gear makes ye sac nice. There's na a ane wad speir your price, Gin ye were poor -as I am. . And one can hear the ring of wholesome village scorn in the old chorus : — O, ken ye wha Meg o' the Mill has gotten ? O, ken ye wha Meg o' tho Mill has gotten? She's gotten a churl wi" a, hantle o' siller, An' broken the heart o' the barley miller.

And, lastly, what a perfect picture is shov, n in the old favourite, '" Castles in the

air : — Ths bonnie, bomiie bairn wha sits poking in the ase, G-low'rirt' in the fire wi' his wee lound face. He sees muckle castles towerin' to the moon, He sees wes soiigers pu'ing them a 1 doon, — Worlds whomblin tip an' doo.l, bleezin' wi'

a fl^.-e, See how he loups as they glimmer in the air.

Sic a nicht in wintc-i will soon m* him

caulcl, His chin upon his buffy hand will soon mak' him auld,

... 0, pray that Daddy Care Wad let the mean alane, wi' his castles in the air. For a' sac sage he looks, what can the laddie

ken? He's thinking upon naething like mony mighty

men. A wee thing mak's us think, a sma/ thing mak's us staie, There's mair folk than him biggin' ca&tles in the air. A perfect picture, indeed — the wide, roaring fireplace of olden clays, the white wealth of a&hes inviting a lazy poker through them, the very '" ribbon sticks "' of our oAvn childhood — us who were reared by such fires -in the far back blocks of Mew -Zealand — the bright, burning checks turned flsmeward in reverie. And yet no moibid peering!} into destiny, no sound of the everflowing dottth- river like th.it which mulled ths fated ear of little Paul Bomber— only the lazy imagination, the \sordless questioning, of bright brain and sound health ; the whole conveying ,=,uch a wide application, fit eh a lender personal conclusion. Could this simple idyl, line for lino, be nutu.tt-.-Ci o.itslde Scotland 1' I doubt it.