Air—“Sweet Annie frae the sea-beach came.”
WI waefu heart and sorrowing e'e
I saw my Jamie sail awa ;
Oh ! twas a fatal day to me,
That day he pass'd the Berwick Law ; [1]
How joyless now seem'd a behind !
I ling'rin, stray'd alang the shore ;
Dark boding fears hung on my mind
That I micht never see him more.
The nicht came on wi heavy rain,
Loud, fierce, and wild the tempest blew;
In mountains roll'd the awful main :
Ah, hapless maid ! my fears how true !
The landsmen heard their drownin cries,
The wreck was seen with dawnin day ;
My love was found, an now he lies
Low in the isle o gloomy May.
O boatman, kindly waft me o'er !
The cavern'd rock shall be my home ;
Twill ease my burdened heart, to pour
Its sorrows o'er his grassy tomb ;
With sweetest flowers I'll deck his grave,
An tend them thro the langsome year ;
I'll water them, ilk morn and eve,
Wi deepest sorrow's warmest tear.
This song appeared in the Nightingale, 1806, page 35, and the Caledonian Musical Repository, 1806, page 180,—a selection of 118 esteemed Scottish Songs, issued by B. Crosby & Co., stationers, Paternoster Row. It was also inserted in R. A. Smith's Scotish Minstrel, Vol. 1., page 16 ; Air,—“The waefu heart.”—Ed.
[1] Berwick Law in the County of Berwick, on the shore of the German Ocean ; the Isle of May is on the opposite shore, near the mouth of the Forth, and is in the Parish of Crail, Fifeshire.—Ed.
[Semple 113]