74 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



For the snaw's on my head and the roses are gane 

 Since that day o' days I first ca'd thee mine ain. 



Or grieves thou the loss of mine eye's youthful fire, 

 And the wild song I sung, which thou used to admire ; 

 For Fm darksome an' cauld now the winter is come, 

 And the soft sound of music within me is dumb. 



But tho' that the fire of mine e'e be dim 

 And age, wi' its frost, stiffens every limb, 

 Thou kens that my heart has no frost for thee, 

 For summer returns at the blink of thine e'e. 



The miser haulds hard, and still harder, his gold ; 

 The ivy grasps firmer the tree when it's old ; 

 And thou art the dearer to me, Mary Hay, 

 As a' else turns seary and life wears away. 



We maun part, Mary Hay, when our journey's done, 

 But Fll meet thee again in the world that's aboon ; 

 Then what gars thee stand wi' a tear in thine e'e, 

 And aye look sae wae when thou lookest on me. 



By whom these lines were written, T am unable to say. They may be 

 by Robert Burns, for 1 have no copy of Burns by me ; but this I can say 

 of them — they are, in my humble opinion, sweetly and tenderly poetical, 

 and worthy the pen of any man. 



I offer no apology for this digression— a passing tribute to the memory 



