DONALD MACDONALD. I PLACE this song the first, not on account of any intrinsic merit that it possesses, for there it ranks rather low, but merely because it was my first song, and exceedingly popular when it first appeared. I wrote it when a barefooted lad herding lambs on the Blackhouse Heights, in utter indignation at the threatened invasion from France. But after it had run through the Three Kingdoms, like fire set to heather, for ten or twelve years, no one ever knew or enquired who was the author.-It is set to the old air," Woo'd an' married an' a'." My name it is Donald M'Donald, I leeve in the Heelands sae grand; When rankit amang the blue bonnets, I ken that my brethren around me A Brogues an' brochin an' a', Brochin an' brogues an' a' ; An' is nae her very weel aff Wi' her brogues an' brochin an' a'? What though we befriendit young To tell it I dinna think shame ; Poor lad, he cam to us but barely, Charlie ?- An' reckon'd our mountains his hame 'Twas true that our reason forbade us; But tenderness carried the day;Had Geordie come friendless amang us, Wi' him we had a' gane away. Sword an' buckler an' a', Buckler an' sword an' a'; Now for George we'll encounter the devil, Wi' sword an' buckler an' a'! An' O, I wad eagerly press him The keys o' the East to retain ; For should he gie up the possession, We'll soon hae to force them again. |