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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1887)
THE WEST SHORE. Two stanzas of the original ballad commemorating them, alone survive IWme Bell and Miry Gray, They were twa bonnie lawie, They blared them a bower on yon burn brae, And thet kit it over wi' rahc. Tlicy wadna retit in Methvin kirk, Among their gentle kin, But they wad lie in Mnoek braes To t' k aainct the nun. Sir Walter Scott, in bis " Border Min strelsy," says: ' There is, to a Scottish ear, so much of tenderness and simplici ty in these versos, as must induce us to regret that the rest should have been su perseded by a pedantic modern song, turning upon the most unpoetic part of the legend; the hesitation, namely, of the lover, which of the ladies to prefer." To a Scottish car, its " tenderness and simplicity" are undoubtedly pleasing, but to the general acceptation it can not compare with the unspeakable melan choly and pathos that lulls the heart and brings tears to the eyes, in the ballad of "Auld Robin Gray," as sung in Scot land. After each verse there is a long reverie in vague notes without words, and each succeeding verse takes up the sto ry weeping, regretting, yet resigned. When the heep are in the fauM and the ky at hame, And a the weary warld to rent arc pine, The waca o' my heart fa' in Miowers frae my e'e, While my gude-man ataj very Hound by mc. Some one, I know not who, writes of it: " If the Greek strophes of Sappho aro the very fire of love, these Scotch notes aro tho very life's blood and tears of a heart stricken to death by fate," With the writer, M I know not who wrote tho music, but whoever he be, thanks to him for having found, in a few notes and in tho mournful melody of a voict, tho expression of infiniio human sad ness." Tho season of the year did not favor a trip farther north, into the highlands of Perthshire, and our disappointment was great at not seeing the lovely " Birks of Aberfeldy, sung by Burns, nor the pass of Killiecrankie, nor Birnam, with its wood of Shakespearean fame, the pro phesy relating to Macbeth not to be ful. filled, as we know, Till Birnam woods do come to Dunsinane, with the accent on the last syllable, ac cording to the requirement of Shake spearean rythm, but which should be pronounced Dun-sm-an by local author ity. It is said that if an intelligent stranger were asked to describe the most varied and the most beautiful among the provinces of Scotland, he would name the county of Perth as that where most emphatically is Beauty found lying in the lap of terror. Hall an hour by train to Dundee took us to the hospitable home of valued friends in the environs of that city, whose acquaintance we had made nearly two years before, during a tour to the lake district of the poets, in Westmoreland and Cumberland, where we had made de lightful trips in company from Keswick to Buttermere, Patterdale and Trout beck, halting at the Falls of Lodore and enjoying the scenery from the top of one of the coaches that ply in those ro mantic localities, with the seats special ly arranged for easy riding and sight seeing. A long-to-be-remembered day, spent partly on tho Ulleswatcr, witnessed our parting at Penrith, and we were now to pay a long promised visit to them in their Scottish home; but alas! not until its honored head, the devoted and re vered husband and father, the beloved and respected citizen, and the entertain ing friend, had left it We found the widow cheerfully serene, faithfully ful filling life's noblest duties in the re sponsible care of her family of five sons and aa many daughters, who had cause, in the 'dual relation she sustained to