Inglis Collection of printed music > Printed music > Songs of Scotland prior to Burns

HEY, NOW THE DAY DAWS ! 251
Eemain -with, me and tarry still,
And see wha playis best their paws,
And let fillock gae fling her fill,
For fient a crum of thee she faws.
Though she he fair, I will not fenzie,
She is the hind of others mae ;
For why 1 there is a fellow menzie,
That seemis guid and are not sae.
My heart, tak nowther pain nor wae,
For Meg, for Marjory, or yet Mause,
But he thou glad and let her gae ;
For fient a crum of thee she faws.
Because I find she took in ill,
At her departing thou mak nae care ;
But all beguiled, go where she will,
Ashrew the heart that mane maks maix !
My heart, be merry late and air,
This is the final end and clause ;
And let her fallow ane filly fair,
For fient a crum of thee she faws.
HEY, NOW THE DAY DAWS !
Dunbar, in one of his poems, ridicules the common minstrels
of Edinburgh for having but two tunes :
Your commone menstralis has no tone,
But Now the Day Daws, and Into June.
This, of course, establishes that there was a popular air, called
Now the Day Daws, as early as the beginning of the sixteenth
century. We have, however, no copy of any tune so named
before one which appears in Gordon's manuscript Lute-book,
1627 ; and the earliest song so entitled is one which appears in
the works of Alexander Montgomery (died between 1607 and