Air—“Sleepin Maggie.” 1806.
CHORUS.—
“O are ye sleepin, Maggie,
O are ye sleepin, Maggie !
Let me in, for loud the linn
Is roarin o'er the warlock craigie.”
MIRK an rainy is the nicht,
No a starn in a the carry,[1]
Lightnin's gleam athwart the lift,
An win's drive wi Winter's fury.
O are ye sleepin, Maggie,
O are ye sleepin, Maggie!
Let me in, for loud the linn
Is roarin o'er the warlock craigie.
Fearfu soughs the boortree bank,
The rifted wood roars wild an drearie,
Loud the iron yett does clank,
An cry o howlets mak's me eerie.
O are ye sleepin, Maggie,
O are ye sleepin, Maggie !
Let me in, for loud the linn
Is roarin o'er the warlock craigie.
Abune my breath I daurna speak,
For fear I rouse your waukrif daddie.
Caul's the blast upon my cheek,
O rise, rise my bonnie laddie !
O are ye sleepin, Maggie,
O are ye sleepin, Maggie !
Let me in, for loud the linn
Is roarin o'er the warlock craigie.
She op'd the door, she let me in,
I cuist aside my dreepin plaidie :
Blaw your warst, ye rain an win,
Since, Maggie, now I'm in aside ye.
Now since ye're wauken, Maggie,
Now since ye're wauken, Maggie,
What care I for howlet's cry,
For boortree bank, or warlock craigie ?
This song first appeared in the Glasgow Nightingale of 1806, page 70. See the first Note to No. 13.—Ed.
[1] “The ‘carry’ means in Scotland the direction in which clouds are carried by the wind. In the above passage, the Author, by a poetical license, uses it to denote the firmament or sky.”[return]
The heroine of this song was Margaret Pollock, a cousin of the Author by the mother's side. She was the eldest daughter of Matthew Pollock (3rd) of Boghall, by his second marriage (mentioned in the Memoir of the Tannahills); and it is very probable the Poet beheld such an evening as he had described, in walking from Paisley over the high road to his uncle's farm steading in Beith Parish. Margaret Pollock afterwards lived in family with William Lochhead, Ryveraes, and she and Mrs. Lochhead frequently sang that song together. Miss Pollock died unmarried.—Ed.
[Semple 116]