WHEN THE KYE COMES HAME. IN the title and chorus of this favourite pastoral song, I choose rather to violate a rule in grammar, than a Scottish phrase so common, that when it is altered into the proper way, every shepherd and shepherd's sweetheart account it nonsense. I was once singing it at a wedding with great glee the latter way, (" when the kye come hame,”) when a tailor, scratching his head, said, "It was a terrible affectit way that!" I stood corrected, and have never sung it so again. It is to the old air of "Shame fa' the gear and the blathrie o't," with an additional chorus. It is set to music in the Noctes, at which it was first sung, and in no other place that I am aware of. COME all ye jolly shepherds That whistle through the glen, I'll tell ye of a secret That courtiers dinna ken: What is the greatest bliss That the tongue o' man can name ? 'Tis to woo a bonny lassie When the kye comes hame. When the kye comes hame, When the kye comes hame, 'Tween the gloaming and the mirk, When the kye comes hame. Nor arbour of the great 'Tis beneath the spreading birk, In the glen without the name, Wi' a bonny, bonny lassie, When the kye comes hame. When the kye comes hame, &c. There the blackbird bigs his nest And on the topmost bough, Where he pours his melting ditty, And love is a' the theme, And he'll woo his bonny lassie When the kye comes hame. When the kye comes hame, &c. When the blewart bears a pearl, And the daisy turns a pea, And the bonny lucken gowan Has fauldit up her ee, Then the laverock frae the blue lift Doops down, an' thinks nae shame To woo his bonny lassie When the kye comes hame. When the kye comes hame, &c. See yonder pawkie shepherd, His ewes are in the fauld, An' his lambs are lying still; Yet he downa gang to bed, For his heart is in a flame, To meet his bonny lassie When the kye comes hame. When the kye comes hame, &c. When the little wee bit heart Rises high in the breast, An' the little wee bit starn Rises red in the east, O there's a joy sae dear, That the heart can hardly frame, Wi' a bonny, bonny lassie, When the kye comes hame! When the kye comes hame, &c. Then since all nature joins In this love without alloy, O, wha wad prove a traitor And miss his bonny lassie When the kye comes hame? When the kye comes hame, When the kye comes hame, 'Tween the gloaming and the mirk, When the kye comes hame! I composed the foregoing song I neither know how nor when ; for when the "Three Perils of Man" came first to my hand, and I saw this song put into the mouth of a drunken poet, and mangled in the singing, I had no recollection of it whatever. I had written it off hand along with the prose, and quite forgot it. But I liked it, altered it, and it has been my favourite pastoral for singing ever since. It is too long to be sung from beginning to end; but only the second and antepenult verses can possibly be dispensed with, and these not very well neither. |