Inglis Collection of printed music > Printed music > Songs of Scotland adapted to their appropriate melodies > Volume 1

THE BEAES BALQUHIDDER.
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quhidder. Will ye go, las - sie, go, To the braes o' Balquhidder? Where the hlae - ber - ries
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grow, 'Mang the bon-me bloom -in' heather.
I will twine thee a bower
By the clear siller fountain,
An' I'll cover it o'er
Wi' the flowers 0' the mountain ;
I will range through the wilds,
An' the deep glens sae dreary,
An' return wi' their spoils
To the bower 0' my deary.
Will ye go, &c.
When the rude wintry win'
Idly raves round our dwellin',
An' the roar 0' the linn
On the night-breeze is swellin', —
Sae merrily we'll sing,
As the storm rattles o'er us,
Till the dear sheeling 1 ring
Wi' the light liltin' chorus.
Will ye go, &c.
Now the summer is in prime,
Wi' the flowers richly bloomin',
An' the wild mountain thyme
A' the moorlands perfumin', —
To our dear native scenes
Let us journey together,
Where glad innocence reigns
'Mang the braes 0' Balquhidder.
Will ye go, &c.
1 A shepherd's cottage : a hut.
" The braes 0' Balquhidder." This song was written by Robert Tannahill, a Paisley weaver, born in that
town 3d June 1774. His death occurred on 17th May 1810, by suicide. His biographers assure us that this
lamentable act arose from no pressure of poverty : " his means were always above his wants." His constitution
was delicate ; his temperament shy and morbidly sensitive ; his sedentary occupation, and various griefs and
disappointments, seem to have produced that mental alienation which clouded the latter days of his brief career.
None but those who have well considered the insidious progress of mental alienation, and who truly feel how
" fearfully and wonderfully we are made," can bestow a just tribute of pity and sorrow upon the solemn fate of
poor Tannahill. Who shall dare to say in his pride, " 1 am secured from this terrible visitation !" A very cele-
brated modern poet, in prosperous circumstances, but suffering under great mental depression, declared to a
friend that he was determined to drown himself. Fortunately the poet's mind recovered its tone, and he died
quietly in his bed. But he might have committed suicide, while labouring under that mental depression which
seems so frequently to attend the temperament of genius.
In Captain S. Fraser's Collection of Melodies of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1816, we find, No. 77,
Bochuiddar — Balquhidder — which is the air applied to Tannahill's song, with some slight differences, as found in
vol. i. p. 49, of R. A. Smith's " Scottish Minstrel."
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