Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Scottish songs > Volume 1

208
But the miller's lovely daughter
Both from cold and care was free
On the banks of Allan water
There a corse lay she.
ANNAN'S WINDING STREAM,
STEWART LEWIS.*
' Tune — Gramachree.
On Annan's banks, in life's gay morn,
I tuned " my wood- notes wild;"
I sung of flocks and flow'ry plains.
Like nature's simple child.
Some talk'd of wealth — I heard of fame,
But thought 'twas all a dream,
For dear I loved a village maid
By Annan's winding stream.
* Stewart Lewis was a native of Lockerby, in Dumfries-shire. In the
earlier part of his life he was a merchant-tailor, but a dispute with his part-
ner caused him afterwards to as?ume the more manly profession of arms.
I remember seeing him in his old days, about the year 1810; when, ha-
ving long given up all regular employment, he used to travel through the
country, with a bundle of small pamphlets, containing his poems, which
he subsisted by selling. He was a man of extravagant speech, and had at
least one pretension to the character of a poet — that he held all persons of
merely common sense in great scorn, and looked upon worldly prudence as
next thing to villainy. His poetry had some merit ; but if he had been a
Shakspeare, or a Burns, he could not have had a higher notion of his dig-
nity as a bard. His wife travelled with him ; a little old woman, forming
a strong contrast in her real appearance to the fanciful description of her
in the above song. She was, however, a woman of prudence, and was de-
votedly attached to her husband. When seen along with him, with her
modest figure, and her perpetual attempts to soften away the effects of
his wild language, she looked like " dejected Pity" by the side of Revenge,
in Collins's Ode, and was almost as interesting a picture. When she
died, the poor pcet almost went distracted with grief. One day, soon af-
ter that event, I found, on coming home, a letter lying for me, which had
been left by him in my absence. It was scrawled from top to bottom in
huge and wildly irregular characters ; but the whole words which it con-
tained were the following : " My dear sir, I AM MAD— Stewart
LevvIS." He did not long survive his partner, but died in 1818, at Lock-
erby, in a state of incurable and almost insane melancholy, which had no
other cause than grief for her death.