Studies in Folk-Song and Popular PoetryWilliams, Alfred M. (Alfred Mason)
History
Studies in Folk-Song and Popular Poetry
Williams, Alfred M. (Alfred Mason)
Folk songs -- History and criticism
The joy that's aye to last,
In the land o' the leal.
Oh, dry your glist'ning ee, John,
My saul langs to be free, John,
And angels beckon me
To the land o' the leal.
O, haud ye leal and true, John,
Your day it's wearin' through, John,
And I 'll welcome you
To the land o' the leal.
Now fare-ye-weel, my ain John,
The world's cares are vain, John,
We 'll meet and will be fain
In the land o' the leal.
The fame of the authoress, so far as she can be said to have any of
her own individual personality, rests upon this song, and sufficiently,
while the English language shall last, but it was not the solitary
example of her genius, and her poetical work, although not great in
hulk, contains other lyrics of a very high quality, with a wide range
from high martial spirit and homely pathos to gay and frolicsome humor,
and instinct with the vital and living element of song. Lady Nairne was
almost morbidly anxious to retain her incognito as a writer during her
life, so that her own husband and nearest relatives were not in the
secret, and those who surmised or guessed it hardly dared to allude to
it in her presence, and the veil has rested over her personality to a
great degree in comparison with the flood of light poured over the
words and actions of her great contemporaries, Scott and Burns, and many
lesser figures in Scotch provincial literature like Professor Wilson and
Hogg. Nevertheless, since her death at a very advanced age in 1846, her
songs have been collected and published under her own name, and enough
has been made known concerning her life and character to give to her
poetry an individuality, and reveal a very gracious, noble and engaging
figure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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