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The Heroines of Burns and Their Celebrating Songs
The Heroines of Burns and Their Celebrating Songs Author:Robert Ford Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " MONTGOMERY'S PEGGY " Montomerie's Peggy was his deity for six or eight months. Nought else is known of her (her surname even has not come down), but that sh... more »e was housekeeper at Coilsfield House, the Castle of Montgomerie—where, at a later period, Mary Campbell acted as byreswoman ; that Burns and she sat in the same church, and that they met frequently at Tarboth Mill. " She had been bred," writes the poet, " though, as the world says, without any just pretence for it, in a style of life rather elegant. But, as Vanburgh says in one of his comedies, my ' damn'd star found me out,' there too; for, though I began the affair merely in a gaietS' de carur, or, to tell the truth, what would scarcely be believed, a vanity of showing my parts in courtship, particularly my abilities at a billet doux, which I always piqued myself upon, made me lay siege to her; and when, as I always do in my foolish gallantries, I had battered myself into a very warm affection for her, she told me one day in a flag of truce, that her fortress had been for some time before the rightful property of another." How frank he is ! Most men, since there was no call for exposure, would have burned the song or never told its story. But not so Robert Burns. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and, sparing not others, he spared not himself. By the time he came to write the song he was evidently in extreme earnest. " It cost some heart aches," he confesses, " to get rid of the affair." MONTGOMERIE'S PEGGY. Altho' my bed were in yon muir, Amang the heather, in my plaidie, Yet happy, happy would I be, Had I my dear Montgomerie's Peggy. When o'er the hill beat surly storms, And winter nights were dark and rainy, I'd seek some dell, and in my arms I'd shelter dear Montgomerie's Peggy. Were I a B...« less