1753 Poem, Anon. (William Starrat), ‘Crochanhill. A Scotch Sang’
Author: Anon. (William Starrat)
Date: 1753
Source: ‘Crochanhill. A Scotch Sang’, an anonymous poem in ‘Scotch Poems’, The Ulster Miscellany, 1753
Comments: This song is one of nine anonymous ‘Scotch Poems’ from the ‘Laggan’ area of North-East Donegal published in The Ulster Miscellany of 1753. In Philip Robinson’s ‘William Starrat of Strabane: the first Ulster-Scots Poet’, Ullans, 5, 1997, he identifies William Starrat as the likely author of at least some of these. Given Starrat’;s well-known friendship and poetical correspondence (in Scots) with Allan Ramsay about 1722, further corroboration of Starrat’;s authorship of these ‘Scotch Poems’ is revealed in the seventh poem (‘An additional Verse to the Widow my Laddie’). The original ‘Widow my Laddie’ was published by Allan Ramsay in his Tea-Table Miscellany … of Songs in English and Scots, in 1750.
Doc. ref. no.: USLS/TB/Poetry/1700-1799/008
Crochanhill. A Scotch Sang
CROCHANHILL. A Scotch SANG.
Air, Hetrick Banks.
I.
The blythest lass, that e’er was seen,
Came up frae Burt to Crochan hill
Wi’ suggared lips and glancing een,
Wi’ heav’nly smiles and wit at will,
Her aspect like the dawn was clear,
When morning gilds the lift serene;
Cou’d any saul of sense forbear
To own her charms, or hug the chain?
II.
When on the banks of Finn we stray’d,
My flightring heart did pant and glow:
The mony pleasing things she said
Fann’d up the flame, and gart it low.
She smiling heard me speak my mind
Wi’ broken sighs, and ill redd phrase:
Delighted I mysell resign’d
To rapt’rous joys, and endless ease.
III.
But soon the lass resolv’d to gae;
Then was my heart opprest wi’ fears!
Down on the grassie bank I lay,
And swell’d the river wi’ my tears!
Finn’s curling streams did beat the brim,
And whimple forth a mournfu’ sang!
It’s sleeky floods mair slaw did swim,
As if they griev’d to let her gang.
IV.
There never was in Crochan hill
A maiden blest wi’ brighter charms:
Never did Finn or Burndale
Infald a fairer ’tween their arms.
But as the rising sun shines forth,
Then slips ahint a cloudy shade,
Sae she appear’d to shaw her worth,
Blink’d out a while, and aff she gae’d.
