Subject: Westerly Winds From: Pete Date: 27 Mar 99 - 08:33 AM Looking for the words to Westerly Winds by Robert Burns or could be known as 'Ode to Autumn' Thanks Pete |
Subject: DT Correction: Now Westlin Winds From: The Shambles Date: 27 Mar 99 - 08:43 AM It is in the good old DT NOW WESTLIN WINDS from Joe Offer - Corrections from The 'Scots Musical Museum' - Volume IV, song 351, page 363 - 'Now westlin winds' http://www.burnsscotland.com/items/v/volume-iv,-song-351,-page-363-now-westlin-winds.aspxZ
tune: I had a horse, I had nae mair @Scottish @seasonal @love @bird @hunt filename[ WSTLNWND TUNE FILE: WSTLNWND CLICK TO PLAY RG
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Subject: RE: Westerly Winds From: Dan Calder Date: 27 Mar 99 - 09:02 AM Canadian folk singer Garnet Rogers has done a great version of this tune on his first CD entitled "Garnet Rogers". Well worth a listen. See his web site for ordering information. http://www.daddyo.com/SnowGoose/index.html For anyone not familiar with Garnet, he is the brother of the late, great Stan Rogers. I've had the pleasure of seeing Garnet in concert several times, and have even been able to spend a little time talking to him. Fabulous performer, and a genuinely nice guy. Enjoy, Dan |
Subject: RE: Westerly Winds From: Pete Date: 27 Mar 99 - 09:06 AM Thanks for your help Shambles, the words are right but there is another tune to this than the sample given on the data base. Does any one know the other tune for this song. Pete |
Subject: RE: Westerly Winds From: Susan A-R Date: 27 Mar 99 - 10:41 PM Believe that the actual poem title should be "Song Composed in August. just in case you wanted that trivia. Nice song! |
Subject: Lyrics needed for 'Now Westlin' Winds' From: danl Date: 22 Apr 99 - 02:28 PM can anyone help me find a copy of the lyrics to this? from Dick Gaughan's 'Handfull of Earth' i think. thanks! |
Subject: RE: Lyrics needed for 'Now Westlin' Winds' From: Susan-Marie Date: 22 Apr 99 - 04:31 PM And once you have the lyrics you need to decide which tune to use. Frank Harte uses one, Anam uses another, and the MIDI I have (I think it was from the DT) is different from either! I like Frank's. |
Subject: RE: Lyrics needed for 'Now Westlin' Winds' From: Bobby Bob, Ellan Vannin Date: 22 Apr 99 - 07:23 PM Lyrics by one Robert Burns, in fact, so if all else fails, grab a book of his poems. Shoh slaynt, Bobby Bob |
Subject: ADD Versionr 'Now Westlin' Winds' From: Wolfgang Date: 23 Apr 99 - 03:50 AM Ivy, you have the lyrics by now, but in case you are looking for more songs found on Dick Gauhan's records go to Dick Gaughan's song library which has a lot of lyrics (as he sings them) including 'Now westlin' winds'.
Wolfgang The partridge loves the fruitful fells Thus every kind their pleasure find But Peggy dear the evening's clear We'll gently walk and sweetly talk |
Subject: RE: Lyrics needed for 'Now Westlin' Winds' From: danl Date: 23 Apr 99 - 03:03 PM thanks one and all! i now see how easy all this could have been! why didnt i think of that before i wonder? maybe because all this is very new to me and a bit daunting, all this being the wonderful world wide web and in fact i must admit folk music too. being a young whippersnapper of a student with too much work and too little money i dont get much oppertunity to pick up anything much more than snippets of things that ive heard friends sing. i'll look forward to increasing my musical knowledge though this site though! thanks again, ivy b. |
Subject: Tune Req: ALT tune for Burns' Westlin Winds From: Susan-Marie Date: 05 Oct 04 - 05:48 PM Being autumn and all, I'm having my band learn Now Westlin Winds by Bobbie Burns. But I just realized I know it to a tune completely different than the one in DT. I learned it from a recording someone made of Frank Harte singing on their porch. Does anyone else know this song to an alternate tune? DO Dick Gaughan and Susan McKeown sing it to the DT tune (I had a horse, I had nae mair) or a different one? |
Subject: RE: Tune Req: ALT tune for Burns' Westlin Winds From: Jeri Date: 05 Oct 04 - 06:18 PM Gaughan sings a different tune than what's in the DT. I haven't heard Susan McKeown sing it. |
Subject: RE: Tune Req: ALT tune for Burns' Westlin Winds From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 05 Oct 04 - 06:52 PM Gaughan got it from Geordie Hamilton (Edinburgh) and said that Len Graham (Ulster) used a similar tune. |
Subject: RE: Tune Req: ALT tune for Burns' Westlin Winds From: Susan-Marie Date: 06 Oct 04 - 07:51 AM There's a version of the song here Is this the tune Gaughan uses? |
Subject: RE: Tune Req: ALT tune for Burns' Westlin Winds From: Brian Hoskin Date: 06 Oct 04 - 07:55 AM Yes, that's the tune Dick Gaughan uses |
Subject: RE: Tune Req: ALT tune for Burns' Westlin Winds From: Susan-Marie Date: 06 Oct 04 - 01:57 PM Thanks. Frank Harte used yet another tune - closer to Gaughan's tune than the one in the DT, but still very different. I found a version of it by Phil Callery & The Long Wave Band, and he says it's the tune of the air "Rattling Guns". So, one song, three tunes (and counting!) |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now Westlin Winds (Robert Burns) From: GUEST,Ferg Date: 30 Dec 09 - 03:31 PM Wow - ten years later and I'm the next one to post! Just been playing this song on my gut string. Makes me cheery. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now Westlin Winds (Robert Burns) From: Tattie Bogle Date: 30 Dec 09 - 04:01 PM The original title - in any book of Burns' poetry is "Song Composed in August": my interpretation is that it is a reference to "The Glorious Twelfth" - the start of grouse shooting in Scotland. It always amazes me that some folk sing it all the way through in the same sweet tone of voice (not necessarily DG however!)when I am sure the third verse is angry, a protest against blood sports - "Avaunt away, the cruel sway, Tyrannic man's dominion, The sportsman's joy, the murdering cry, The fluttering gory pinion". I go back to tips given me by a couple of very good singers: "read the words, make sense of them, then put the sense into your singing". Oh, and one young band even left that verse out! OK, rant over, it's still my favourite Burns song of all time for the beautiful imagery in ALL of the verses, and he wrote it when so young too. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now Westlin Winds (Robert Burns) From: Joe_F Date: 30 Dec 09 - 06:01 PM A tune, presumably the one specified by Burns, is given in _Burns: Poems and Songs_ (ed. James Kinsley), p. 2. It is described as that of "I had a horse, I had nae mair". |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now Westlin Winds (Robert Burns) From: Smokey. Date: 30 Dec 09 - 07:14 PM Burns' original is called 'Peggy'. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now Westlin Winds (Robert Burns) From: Tattie Bogle Date: 30 Dec 09 - 07:29 PM She who he wrote it for, mentioned in the 4th verse. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now Westlin Winds (Robert Burns) From: Jim McLean Date: 31 Dec 09 - 09:14 AM I thought you might like to read this, taken from James C Dick's book 'The Songs of Robert Burns and Notes on Scottish Song by Robert Burns': In the Commonplace Book, entitled 'Har'ste:- a fragment, are eight lines substantially the same as begins the song which the sister of Burns said was written for Jean Armour. The complete song is in the Kilmarnock edition 1786, 224, entitled 'Song, composed in August'. Tune,'I had a Horse, I had naer mair', and the MS. is in the British Museum. Burns changed the heroine to Peggy Thomson, who lived next door to the Kirkoswald school, where Burns studied trigonometry, and she 'upset all my sines and co-sines, and it was in vain to to think of doing any more good at school'. She subsequently married a Mr. Neilson, and Burns was on friendly terms with both. When the song was revised, Burns altered the melody to Port Gordon, as may be seen in the Gray and Law MS Lists, but Johnson of the (Scots Musical) Museum neglected the instruction, and attached the melody When the King Comes o'er the Water, titling it erroneously Come, Kiss with Me. Thomson, in Scottish Airs, 1799, 93, mutilated the verses, and adapted them to an Irish air 'Ally Croker'. The tune Port Gordon, for which Burns wrote the song, is in the Caledonian Pocket Companion, c. 1756, viii. 25. There is a familiar resemblance, but the air is not the same as When the King Comes o'er the Water. I have listened to Dick Gaughan and various other singers on YouTube but not one of them sings either the 'Come, Kiss with me', 'Port Gordon' or 'I had a Horse, I had nae mair' tune. I wonder if they are singing the 'Ally Croker' tune which I don't have at the moment, or did someone originally 'invent' their own tune and everyone else copied it? |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now Westlin Winds (Robert Burns) From: Jim McLean Date: 31 Dec 09 - 09:16 AM PS The tune in the DigiTrad is 'I had a horse, I had nae mair'. I Had a Horse, and I Had Nae Mair (recording by Katherine Campbell): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W3p3fpm-Cs Now Westlin Winds by Robert Burns - original tune (Andrew Calhoun): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPZDidwmdfY |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: GUEST Date: 25 May 18 - 04:03 AM Can you tell me who wrote the music to the Now Westlin Winds as sung by Dick Gaughan? Thanks |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: GUEST,Martin Date: 11 Jun 18 - 08:12 PM I found another mentioning of "the Air 'Rattling Guns'" for the melody in a recorded performance of Westlin Winds by The Voice Squad. Someone above cited the same by "Phil Callery & The Long Wave Band" - well, Phil is member of The Voice Squad as well. To add to the confusion: John Moulden here suggests the name "Rattling Guns" might itself have resulted from a distortion of the first line of "Westlin Winds"... (if I understand that correctly). However, he also refers to Len Graham, wo can be found singing the song to a tune quite similar to Gaughans variant. But I could not find any notes to an air "Rattlings Guns" online. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: Gallus Moll Date: 12 Jun 18 - 10:25 AM 'Bobbie' Burns?????!!!!! |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: leeneia Date: 14 Jun 18 - 11:34 AM Since I'm a bird lover, I took an interest in this song and decided to sing it. Before I could do that it needed work. If you are a Catter in good standing, PM me with your e-mail address, and I will send you a PDF of the music and lyrics. Burns combined two songs here, a song of love and a song of protest. it isn't working. The love is like ice cream and the protest is like hot sauce. They don't work when mixed. The tune in the DT is a good start but needed modification. It's a pipe tune or fiddle tune and has a big range - an octave plus four notes. It has many snaps, but the short note of the snap often comes on the strong syllable of a word; it's backwards. So I've altered the tune. It is in 4/4 time in the key of E. The first chord is A. I will submit it for posting and it should appear here soon. Since I can't sing 18th-C Scots dialect, I modernized the words. Here they are. (I kept 'hern' because of the meter.) 1. Now westlin wind the warm rain brings and August's pleasant weather; The moorcock springs on whirring wings, Among the blooming heather; Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain, Delights the weary farmer; The moon shines bright, as I rove at night, To muse upon my Charmer. 2. The partridge loves the fruitful fells; The plover loves the mountains; The wood-cock haunts the lonely dells; The soaring hern the fountains. Through lofty groves the cushat roves, The path o'-man: to shun it; The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush, the spreading thorn the linnet. 3. Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find, The savage and the tender; Some social join, and leagues combine; Some solitary wander: But Peggy dear, the ev'ning's clear, Thick flies the skimming swallow; The sky is blue, the fields in view, All fading-green and yellow: 3. Come let us stray our gladsome way, And view the charms o' Nature: The rustling corn, the fruited thorn And ev'ry happy creature. We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk, While the silent moon shines clearly; I'll clasp thy waist, and fondly prest, Swear how I love thee dearly.
Click to play (joeweb) |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: Tattie Bogle Date: 14 Jun 18 - 01:05 PM I have always sung the full 5 verses: I can work with the contrast between verses 1,2,4,5 and the angry verse 3. If you look back at my post from 2009, I did mention that one band left verse 3 out, much to my consternation! I do go loud and angry in v3 and then quieten down again in v4. Each to their own, I suppose. I don't have a Scots accent, although had a Scottish mother, so I do have to work on the pronunciation, although this particular song has less of the broad Scots in it than some of Burns' poems. I have always sung it to the tune popularised by Dick Gaughan, which has a range of an octave + 1 tone, so not too much of a stretch. I did look at the Port Gordon tune, but it also has a range of an octave-and-a-half a seemed a particularly miserable tune to me, so haven't gone any further with that. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: GUEST,Guest Date: 14 Jun 18 - 08:23 PM If we are to exclude Dick from the current singers of the song then it would be hard to find better interpretations than either Phil Callery's or Alan Prior's. It really is a magical song and I would submit that the sweet and the protest work exceedingly well when in the hands of masters such as above. Let's not lose sight of the fact that Burns was writing of life as it was and in some areas still is. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: GUEST,RA Date: 15 Jun 18 - 04:41 AM I aye thocht it wis "brin autumn's pleasant weather", no "bring"... |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: Tattie Bogle Date: 15 Jun 18 - 11:44 AM Agree with GUEST, guest there! It's "bring" in my copy of Complete Works. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: FreddyHeadey Date: 15 Jun 18 - 05:08 PM Andrew Calhoun singing it to the original tune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNlHPAxJu6U?t=225s Return to the start of you want to hear his description. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: GUEST,passing by Date: 05 Nov 19 - 08:53 AM Here's a version quite like any other: Yorkston Thorne Khan - Westlin Winds And from their Twitter - " shared is our version of Dick Gaughan's version of Robert Burns' 'Now Westlin Winds'. In true YTK style, we've mixed it with a rather beautiful song that Suhail learned from qawwali singers at Hazrat Nizammuddin’s shrine in Delhi" |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: Stewie Date: 05 Nov 19 - 07:24 PM Here is a beaut recent rendition: Band of Burns --Stewie. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: Stewie Date: 05 Nov 19 - 07:27 PM Apologies, not recent, but definitely a good'un. --Stewie. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: GUEST,Jim McLean Date: 07 Sep 21 - 08:32 AM https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/73?l=en Here is the first recording of the song and is the one used by Dick Gaughan et al. |
Subject: RE: Origins: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: GUEST,JHW Date: 10 Sep 21 - 06:21 AM Ian Bruce sings Now Westlin Winds on Linn Records Burns Complete songs CD 2. In my humble opinion the musical break verse would have been better placed after v3 (rather than v4) ie before the sweetness of But, Peggy Dear... |
Subject: RE: Origins: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: leeneia Date: 11 Sep 21 - 12:13 AM Now, about that cushat that roves through lofty groves: the word cushat is used for several members of the Columba group of birds - the wood pigeon, the ring=dove, the pigeon. So it's a loose term, but that'sall right. But one Internet source says the u is short [roughly rhyming with 'PUSH at'] and another says it's long. [COO shat] What's the opinion of anybody who has ever heard the word spoken in their neighborhood? ============= A quotation from Wodehouse: He spoke in the dulcet tones of a cushat dove trying to borrow money from another cushat dove. |
Subject: RE: Origins: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: Tattie Bogle Date: 11 Sep 21 - 12:36 PM "Here in Scotland", Leeneia, I've always heard it as a short u, as in "push"(at). |
Subject: RE: Origins: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: GUEST,Jim McLean Date: 12 Sep 21 - 03:05 AM The West of Scotland doesn’t have a long “oo”. sound. I learned this when I first went to Germany where the short “ü” can change the meaning of a word, “bruder” for example, with a long “u” becomes plural with a short “ü”. I found I couldn’t say a long “u” without a great deal of practice. Ritson pointed out that the spelling of words with “ui” was to signify short “u” for English readers. |
Subject: RE: Origins: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: JHW Date: 12 Sep 21 - 05:17 AM u in cushion or pussycat is a different sound to the u in up. But they are both short syllables. Cushy Butterfield has one of each. |
Subject: RE: Origins: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: Tattie Bogle Date: 12 Sep 21 - 07:32 AM True! Perhaps there are short, medium and long U sounds? In Suffolk, they can't say a "you" sound as in "skew": and my son Ewan got called OO-an. |
Subject: RE: Origins: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: GUEST,Nick Dow Date: 12 Sep 21 - 11:08 AM In conversation with Dick and also Len Graham, I discovered that Dick got the song from Len who collected words and tune from Tommy Kelly of Newtown Crommelin Co Antrim. Funnily enough I heard Len sing the song before I heard Dick's version. Burns is popular with traditional singers in Ulster. (Makem's, McPeake's and others.) |
Subject: RE: Origins: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: Joe_F Date: 12 Sep 21 - 07:11 PM The OED makes the vowel u in "cushat" like the one in "up". It does not discuss variations. |
Subject: RE: Origins: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: leeneia Date: 14 Sep 21 - 03:12 PM I'm going to go along with Tattie Bogle and say it like "push at." We say 'cushion' that way, so why not 'cushat'. Meanwhile, we all know vowels can change from one valley to the next. |
Subject: RE: Origins: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: Tattie Bogle Date: 14 Sep 21 - 06:08 PM Thanks Leeneia: never heard it as Joe F describes it, whatever the OED says!!! (Note that's the Oxford ENGLISH dictionary and cushat is a Scots name for the bird! It even gets underlined in red as I type it, as a potential spelling mistake, with somewhat ludicrous alternatives suggested!) |
Subject: RE: Origins: Westerly Winds/Now Westlin Winds (Burns) From: GUEST,Rory Date: 13 Apr 22 - 06:58 AM Now Westlin' Winds Poem written by Robert Burns (1759 - 1796) in 1785 BURNS IN KIRKOSWALD 1775 MEETING PEGGY THOMSON "Now, Westlin Winds"– originally titled "Song Composed In August "– was revised several times by Burns with his love interests Peggy Thomson and Jean Armour as subjects in the song, which first appeared in written form in 1785. It has its genesis in 1775 while he was at summer school in Kirkoswald at the time of the 16-year-old Burns’ infatuation with a girl called Peggy, who is Margaret Thomson of Kirkoswald whom Burns described as, ‘a charming fillette who lived next door to the school', and first met in the garden while taking the sun's altitude at noon as the sun entered Virgo (23 August). 'Composed in August' is said to have been inspired when he met her again some years later after she was married in 1784 to William Nielson, an old acquantance of Burns in Kirkoswald. (Though it cannot be entirely ruled out that the song was composed before 1785 and even to 1775). Burns wrote in a letter to his friend, Dr Moore, in August 2, 1787: `I spent my seventeenth summer on a smuggling coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school, to learn mensuration, surveying, dialling, etc., in which I made a pretty good progress. But I made greater progress in the knowledge of mankind. The contraband trade was at that time very successful; scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were as yet new to me, and I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I learned to look unconcernedly on a large tavern-bill, and mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went on with a high hand in my geometry, till the sun entered Virgo, a month which is always a carnival in my bosom, a charming fillette, who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and set me off on a tangent from the sphere of my studies. I struggled on with my sines and cosines for a few days more; but stepping out to the garden one charming noon, to take the sun's altitude, there I met my angel, 'Like Proserpine gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower.' It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The remaining week I staid I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about her, or steal out to meet with her; and the two last nights of my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, I was innocent. I returned home very considerably improved. BURNS COMMONPLACE BOOK 1783-1785 MEETING JEAN ARMOUR The first 8 lines of the song were copied into Burns' first Commonplace Book in August 1785 on page 37, where he recorded ideas and drafts of writings from 1783 to 1785, under the title 'HAR'STE - A Fragment' [meaning hairst, harvest]: Now breezy win's and slaughtering guns Bring Autumn's pleasant weather, And the muir cock springs on whirring wings Amang the blooming heather Now waving crops, with yellow tops, Delight the weary Farmer, An' the moon shines bright when I rove at night, To muse on XXXXX XXXXX Burns's cypher - HAR'STE - A Fragment [Now Westlin Winds] - Commonplace Book page 37 August 1785 The context indicates that two words of five characters each in cipher in the last line following 'I muse on' were probably 'Jean Armour'. Possibly to hide the name 'Jean Armour' from his youngest sister, Isabella. At the time Burns was conducting his affair with Jean Armour, whom he met in April 1784. By 1785 Burns and Jean Armour were in a relationship, and he had intended to marry her as soon as they realised she was pregnant in early 1786, but had been discouraged by her reluctance to disobey her father's disapproval of the union. Burns affair with Armour may have prompted him to write Jean Armour's name in cipher. Mrs Isabella Begg remembered Jean Armour being celebrated in one version of the song, now lost, appearing in lines 8 and 40, and Jeanie in line 25. Later replacing her surname with ‘Charmer’ in lines 8 and 40, and Jeanie for ‘Peggy’ in line 25, as appears in the printed version in the Kilmarnock edition of 1786. Burns uncertain relationship with Jean Armour and his later meeting with Peggy Thomson in this period may have prompted him to change the wording from Jean Armour to Peggy. BURNS KILMARNOCK EDITION 1786 The completed song was one of three songs included in the Kilmarnock edition of 1786, a collection of Burns' poems requested by him to be printed by John Wilson, with the title SONG, COMPOSED IN AUGUST, and tune, "I had a horse, I had nae mair". Burns and Jean Armour lived apart for a while, and later reconciled their relationship in 1788. In the light of Burns's new-found celebrity as a poet beginning with the success of the Kilmarnock edition of 1786, James Armour relented and allowed his daughter to be married to him. Although their marriage was registered on 5 August 1788 in Mauchline, the parish records describe them as having been "irregularly married some years ago". She and Burns moved to Ellisland Farm where they stayed until 1791 when they moved to Dumfries, where both would live for the rest of their lives. SCOTS MUSICAL MUSEUM Burns came to revive this song for The Scots Musical Museum, but this time to the tune Port Gordon and incorporating more Scots into the piece. Scots Musical Museum, by James Johnson, Vol 4 (1792), p.363 (No.351). Tune [incorrect title]: "Come Kiss wi' me, come clazp wi' me", [correct title]: "Where the king comes o'er the water". Burns' intended tune: "Port Gordon" There appears to be some confusion as to which melody these song lyrics are meant to accompany. According to Glen (1900), this confusion arose because James Johnson wrote down the song title of a completely different melody, "Come Kiss wi' me, come clazp wi' me", instead of "Where the king comes o'er the water". Burns sent the song to James Johnson for inclusion in Scots Musical Museum. A note in his 'List of songs for 3d volume of Scots Musical Museum', sent to Johnson on 24 April 1789, reads: 'Now Westlin Winds - tune - Port Gordon - Mr Burns words - printed - but he gave in writing some alterations which please observe' These alterations add to the Scots diction in the opening stanzas. POEMS, CHIEFLY IN THE SCOTTISH DIALECT, BY ROBERT BURNS. Kilmarnock: printed by John Wilson, 1786, pp. 224-226 SONG, "COMPOSED IN AUGUST". Tune, "I had a horse, I had nae mair". Now westlin winds, and slaught'ring guns Bring Autumn's pleasant weather; And the moorcock springs, on whirring wings, Amang the blooming heather: Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain, Delights the weary Farmer; And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night, To muse upon my Charmer. The Partridge loves the fruitful fells; The Plover loves the mountains; The Woodcock haunts the lonely dells; The soaring Hern the fountains: Thro' lofty groves, the Cushat roves, The path of man to shun it; The hazel bush o'erhangs the Thrush, The spreading thorn the Linnet. Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find, The savage and the tender; Some social join, and leagues combine; Some solitary wander: Avaunt, away! the cruel sway, Tyrannic man's dominion; The Sportsman's joy, the murd'ring cry, The flutt'ring, gory pinion! But PEGGY dear, the ev'ning's clear, Thick flies the skimming Swallow; The sky is blue, the fields in view, All fading-green and yellow: Come let us stray our gladsome way, And view the charms of Nature; The rustling corn, the fruited thorn, And ev'ry happy creature. We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk, Till the silent moon shine clearly; I'll grasp thy waist, and fondly prest, Swear how I love thee dearly: Not vernal show'rs to budding flow'rs, Not Autumn to the Farmer, So dear can be, as thou to me, My fair, my lovely Charmer! "Now westlin winds" Scots Musical Museum, by James Johnson, Vol 4 (1792), p.363 (No.351). Tune [incorrect title]: "Come Kiss wi' me, come clazp wi' me", [correct title]: "Where the king comes o'er the water" Burns' intended tune: "Port Gordon" Now westlin winds, and slaughtering guns Bring Autumn's pleasant weather; The gorcock springs, on whirring wings Amang the blooming heather: Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain Delights the weary Farmer, The moon shines bright, as I rove by night, To muse upon my charmer.' The paitrick lo'es the fruitfu' fells The plover lo'es the mountains The woodcock haunts the lonely dells The soaring hern the fountains Through lofty groves the cushat roves The path o' man to shun it The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush The spreading thorn, the linnet Thus every kind their pleasure find The savage and the tender Some social join, and leagues combine Some solitary wander Avaunt, away, the cruel sway Tyrannic man's dominion The sportsman's joy, the murdering cry The fluttering gory pinion But, Peggy dear, the evening's clear Thick flies the skimming swallow The sky is blue, the fields in view All fading green and yellow Come, let us stray our gladsome way And view the joys of nature The rustling corn, the fruited thorn And ilka happy creature We'll gently walk and sweetly talk While the silent moon shines clearly I'll clasp thy waist, and fondly prest Swear how I lo'e thee dearly Not vernal showers to budding flowers Not autumn to the farmer So dear can be as thou to me My fair, my lovely charmer Westlin = from the west gorcock = a moorcock, or a red or black male grouse paitrick = partridge fells = moor covered hills hern = heron cushat = wood-pigeon avaunt = away with you! move on! gory = bloody ilka = every vernal = spring |
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