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Description: | Verse 1: 'In may when the daises appear on the green, And flow'rs in the field and the forest are seen; Where lillies bloom'd bony and hawthorns upsprung, A pensive young Shepherd oft whistled and sung. But neither the shades nor the sweets of the flowers, Nor the blackbirds that warbled in blossoming bowers, Could pleasure his eye, or his ear entertain, For love was his pleasure and love was his pain.'
The 'Scots Musical Museum' is the most important of the numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Scottish song. When the engraver James Johnson started work on the second volume of his collection in 1787, he enlisted Robert Burns as contributor and editor. Burns enthusiastically collected songs from various sources, often expanding or revising them, whilst including much of his own work. The resulting combination of innovation and antiquarianism gives the work a feel of living tradition.
According to Burns, in his notes on the 'Museum', 'This song is Blacklock's. I don't know how it came by the name, but the oldest appellation of the air, was 'Whistle and I'll come to you my lad'. It has little affinity to the tune commonly known by that name.' Thomas Blacklock (1721-91), friend of Burns and fellow poet, contributed a number of songs to the 'Museum', including 'Fife and a' the lands about it' (song 120), 'Absence' (song 184), 'Nancy's ghost' (song 197) and 'Laddie lie near me' (song 218). According to John Glen (1900), the accompanying tune did not appear in any song collections prior to the 'Museum'. He does, however, consider it to be of Irish origin. | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 | Publisher: | National Library of Scotland | Temporal: | 1787-01-01 - 1803-12-31 | Source: | Burns Scotland | Identifier: | Volume III, song 278, pages 286 and 287 | Go to resource |
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