Volume III, song 294, page 304 - 'The blue-eyed Lassie' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)

Verse 1: 'I gaed a waefu' gate, yestreen, A gate, I fear, I'll dearly rue; I gat my death frae twa sweet een, Twa lovely e'en o' bonie blue. 'Twas not her golden ringlets bright; Her lips like roses, wat wi' dew, Her heaving bosom, lily white, It was her e'en sae bonie blue.' 'E'en' is Scots for 'eyes'. 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 wrote these lyrics in 1789 for his friend Robert Riddell of Glenriddell (1755-94) who composed both this tune and that of the next song in the 'Museum', 'The Banks of Nith', to which Burns also wrote the lyrics. Riddell had written his own words to the tunes but, according to Glen (1900), they were 'very inferior'. Glen says that this tune, 'is good, but it possesses a compass too extensive for the voice'.

Collection

Scots Musical Museum

Inventory Number

4503490

Title

Volume III, song 294, page 304 - 'The blue-eyed Lassie' - 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

- 132 x 211 mm