Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Songs of Scotland prior to Burns

26S SONGS OF SCOTLAND.
But curse him not, perhaps now he,
Stung with remorse, is blessing thee :
Perhaps at death — for who can tell
Whether the Judge of heaven and hell,
By some proud foe, has struck the blow,
And laid the dear deceiver low.
I wish I were within the bounds,
Where he lies smothered in his wounds,
Repeating, as he pants for air,
My name, whom once he called his fair ;
No woman 's yet so fiercely set,
But she '11 forgive, though not forget.
Baloo, my boy, I '11 weep for thee ;
Too soon, alas ! thou 'It weep for me :
Thy griefs are growing to a sum,
God grant thee patience when they come ;
Born to sustain thy mother's shame,
A hapless fate, a bastard's name.
Baloo, my boy, lie still and sleep,
It grieves me sair to hear thee weep.
It was the belief of Mr Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, founded
on family traditions, supported by a passage in Father Hay's
Manuscripts, 1 that this pathetic ballad was designed to embody
the woes of a real sufferer by unfaithful love, a Mistress Anne
Bothwell, daughter of the bishop of Orkney, who performed
the Protestant nuptial ceremony over Mary in her union with
the Earl of Bothwell, and afterwards made himself contemptible
by appearing as evidence against her at York. 2 The lover was
the lady's cousin, the Hon. Alexander Erskine, a younger son
1 Advocates' Library.
2 No Anne Bothwell appears in the meagre article on the family in
Wood's Peerage. The lady is more likely to have been a granddaughter
of the bishop.