Volume I, song 083, page 84 - 'She rose, and let me in' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)

Verse 1: 'The night her silent sable wore, And gloomy were the skies, Of glitte'ring stars appear'd no more, Than those in Nelly's eyes. When to her Father's door I came, Where I had often been, I begg'd my fair my lovely dame, To rise, and let me in.' 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. Burns included a long comment on this song in his personal notebook, 'The old set of this song. .. is much prettier than this; but somebody, I believe it was Ramsay, took it into his head to clear it of some seeming indelicacies, and made it at once more chaste and more dull'. Later commentators, however, have suggested an English origin for the song.

Collection

Scots Musical Museum

Inventory Number

4503278

Title

Volume I, song 083, page 84 - 'She rose, and let me in' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)

Object Type

PhysicalObject

Measurements

- 130 x 211 mm