"AULD LANG SYNE."

Otago Witness, Issue 2506, 2 April 1902, Page 67

"AULD LANG SYNE."

\t each joyous season of the year there is (rem.vks a writer in an English papei) no song, however widely some favourites may have penefrated, that enjoys a tithe of the popularity of the simple Scot? ballad, "Auld Lang Syne." It reigns undisputed a? the national anthem of the word, so to speak. It has been translated into some 70 languages and dialects, and it may safely be assumed, at least of those of the Eng-lish-speaking race, that wherever two or three are gathered together in the n.ime of festivity, "Auld Lang Syne"' i& never absent fvoiin the piogramme, wafting back the minds of the singeis to the icuies. of their youth, when they " paidl'd in the burn "" and " ran about the braes." It is to this vein of tender recollection that the undying popularity of " Auld lang syne " must be ascribed. The average man, if asked to name the author of " Auld Lang Syne," would at once answer Burns. But he would be only partly right, for the first author of this, as of so many of the Scottish songs, is quite unknown. Burns took pains, indeed, to disclaim the authoiship on more than one occasion. He found it n rough fragment, and with the flame of his genius refined it into the divine lyric we now know. Some of the most beautiful gems of Scottish song are the result of similai experience. TLe original words, somewhat roujih and uncouth as they were, weie handed down from generation to generation, probably from the time of Elizabeth, for the phraje " Auld lang syne ' can be traced back in old broadsides to the days of Queen Bess. It is known to have been <-uiit; at convivial meetings as early as the end of the seventeenth centuiy. An early veiMon appears in James Watson's collection of Scottish songs, published in 1711, and to show how Burns gave strength and beauty to the phrasing, the first verse of the original may be quoted : Should old acquaintance be forgot And neve-.- thought upon, The flaiu^ of love extinguished And fairly past and gone 1 ' Is thy kiiul heart now grown so cold In that lo\:ng breast of thine, That thou cvnst nevei oico reflect On o'd Ung syne ' Tlus stanza is c rnm a poem toi which ciedit is given to ,>. Sir Robert Ayton, of Kincaldie, a contemporary and friend of Ben Jonson, but it is extremely jmpiobable that Ayton''' authoiship extends beyond the mere fact of tpkmg the woid 1 - from the mouths of the people « ho had heard it from their fatheis, and guing it hteiary form. The poem, such as it wa. . next enjoyed the attention of Alan Rams iy. one of Burns's fore -runners, who had aheady made a coimdeiable reputation a- a compiler of old song-s and balLicU R.im-iiy deliberately overturned the srnt'incit of the son^, and made a love affati its keynote The iirit verse of lii& XftJ^iuii rucai.

As I was lang syne. Ramsay printed the song in his " Tea Table Miscellany" in 1724, from which it was transferred. to Johnson's " Musical Museum," published during Burns's sojourn in the Scottish capital. Burns wrote a number of notes on the songs in the "Museum," and of " Auld Lang Syne" h* says :— " Ramsay here, as usual with him has taken the 'idea of the song and the first line from the old fragment which will appear in the 'Museum,' vol. V.' Again, in a letter to Mrs Dunlop, he says: — "Is not the Scots phrass * Auld lang syne ' exceedingly expressive. There is an old song and tune which has often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast on old Scot songs. I shall give you the verses." And the words of the " Auld Lang Syne" we now know were enclosed. " Light lie the turf, he went on, "on the breast of the Heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment ! There is more of the fire of native genius in it than half a dozen modern English bacchanalians." In another letter to George Thomson, his publisher, he wrote : " One song more, and I am done — ' Auld Lang Syne.' The air is but mediocre, but the following son^, the old song of the olden times, and which has never been in print nor been in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man's singing, is enough to recommend any air." From this it would appear that there were two or three verbil versions of the old song, one preserved by Ayton and one by Burns.