Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott Author:James White 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: reputation. He burned the " lines" proving and establishing the marriage, and tore his daughter from a wicked and unbelieving heathen who had turned into ridicul... more »e the leaders of the party he belonged to. Here was a real suffering. Burns forgot his wretched fields—his prospects of distress. The worst of evils had come upon him, and all day long he looked despairing to the sinking sun which he knew was setting upon the cottage where Jean was kept away from him. How little many of us think, when we read or listen to his song on this occasion, how bitter was the grief it sprang from, and how true the affection it expressed :— Of a' the airts the wind can blaw, I dearly like the west, For there the bonnie lassie lives, The lassie I lo'e best: There 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 bonnie flower that springs By fountain, shaw, or green, There's not a bonnie bird that sings, But minds me o' my Jean. 0 Haw ye westlin winds, blaw saft Amang the leafy trees, Wi' balmy gale, frae hill and dale Bring hame the laden bees ; And bring the lassie back to me That's aye sae neat and clean; Ae smile o' her wad banish care, Sae charming is my Jean. What sighs and vows amang the knowes Hae passed atween us twa! How fond to meet, how wae to part, That night she gaed awa! The powers aboon can only ken, To whom the heart is seen, That nane can be sae dear to me As my sweet lovely Jean! Whether his now disconsolate situation inspired him with poetic thoughts we cannot tell, but in two years he finished the poems which firs...« less