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Songs of Robert Burns/Loud blaw the frosty breezes

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Songs of Robert Burns ~ Loud blaw the frosty breezes
James C. Dick
No. 292. From "The Songs by Robert Burns". A Study in Tone-Poetry. Published by Henry Frowde. London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and New York 1903. Source «traditionalmusic»


Page 275. viii. JACOBITE

No. 292. Loud blaw the frosty breezes.

Tune: Morag (see No. 98).
Songs-Robert-Burns-98.png


* * *



Loud blaw the frosty breezes,
    The snaws the mountains cover;
Like winter on me seizes,
    Since my young Highland Rover
    Far wanders nations over.
Where'er he go, where'er he stray,
    May Heaven be his warden ;
Return him safe to fair Strathspey
    And bonie Castle-Gordon !

The trees, now naked groaning,
    Shall soon wi' leaves be hinging,
The birdies, dowie moaning,
    Shall a' be blythely singing,
    And every flower be springing.
Sae I'll rejoice the lee-lang day,
    When (by his mighty warden)
My youth's returned to fair Strathspey
    And bonie Castle-Gordon.


Page 468. HISTORICAL NOTES

No. 292. Loud blaw the frosty breezes. Scots Musical Museum, 1788, No. 143, entitled the Young highland rover, signed 'R.' Tune, Morag. The MS. is in the British Museum and the song is in Thomson's Scotish Airs, 1799, 6y. On September 7, 1787, Burns and his companion, being in the neighbour hood of Castle Gordon, the poet called on the Duke and Duchess, who received him with the greatest kindness and hospitality. He dined with the company at the Castle, and was pressed to remain, but he was obliged to refuse as he had left Nicol at Fochaber's Inn. The Duke sent a special messenger to invite Nicol to the Castle, but the irascible Schoolmaster had already exhausted his small stock of patience, and bluntly declined the invitation. Burns found him pacing in front of the Inn with a carriage and horses ready to start. The poet subsequently described himself ' as travelling with a blunderbuss at full cock,' and this time it went off. Writing afterwards to the Duke's librarian, he said: ' I shall certainly, among my legacies, leave my latest curse to that unlucky predicament which hurried—tore rde from Castle Gordon. May that rfbstinate son of Latin prose be curst to Scotch-mile periods, and damned to seven-leagued paragraphs; while Declension and Conjugation, Gender, Number,

Page 469. viii. JACOBITE

and Tense, under the ragged banners of Dissonance and Disarrangement, eternally rank against him in hostile array.' According to Stenhouse the song was written to commemorate the visit of Prince Charles Stuart to Castle Gordon, before his defeat at Culloden.

The tune Morag is a Celtic air justly admired by Burns. In 1794 he wrote to George Thomson, that this song was not worthy of the air. It is very little known and ought to be popular, if only on account of the melody. When sending a copy of the Museum containing the song to Rose of Kilravock and to the Duke's librarian, Burns spoke of the melody in enthusiastic terms. The tune is in Dow's Scots Music, c. 1776, 46. A bad copy is in Fraser's Highland Airs, No. 119. See No. 98.

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