Volume III, song 243, page 252 - 'The Waefu' Heart' -...
Volume III, song 243, page 252 - 'The Waefu' Heart' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
Verse 1: 'Gin living worth coud win my heart, You woud na speak in vain, But in the darksome grave it's laid, Never to rise again. My waefu' heart lies low wi' his Whose heart was only mine And oh! what a heart was that to lose, But I maun no repine.'
The 'Scots Musical Museum' is the most important of the numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Scottish song. When the engraver James Johnson started work on the second volume of his collection in 1787, he enlisted Robert Burns as contributor and editor. Burns enthusiastically collected songs from various sources, often expanding or revising them, whilst including much of his own work. The resulting combination of innovation and antiquarianism gives the work a feel of living tradition.
There have been two possible authors suggested for this song. The first, Joseph Dale, was a London publisher, who engraved the piece for Domenico Corri. According to the source it was sung by a Master Knyvett, who would only have been four when the piece was published. This suggestion as a result is doubtful as a solution. The second has very little evidence to support the claim, but the editor Patrick Maxwell believed it to be the work of his client, the poet Miss Susanna Blamire.
Volume III, song 243, page 252 - 'The Waefu' Heart' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)