"Oh, I'm Wat, Wat!"

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Title:     "Oh, I'm Wat, Wat!"
Author: John Brown [More Titles by Brown]

The father of the Rev. Mr. Steven of Largs, was the son of a farmer, who lived next farm to Mossgiel. When a boy of eight, he found "Robbie" who was a great friend of his, and of all the children, engaged digging a large trench in a field, Gilbert, his brother, with him. The boy pausing on the edge of the trench, and looking down upon Burns, said, "Robbie, what's that ye're doin'?" "Howkin' a muckle hole, Tammie." "What for?" "To bury the Deil in, Tammie!" (one can fancy how those eyes would glow.) "A'but, Robbie," said the logical Tammie, "hoo're ye to get him in?" "Ay" said Burns, "that's it, hoo are we to get Him in!" and went off into shouts of laughter; and every now and then during that summer day shouts would come from that hole, as the idea came over him. If one could only have daguerreotyped his day's fancies!

"What is love, Mary?" said Seventeen to Thirteen, who was busy with her English lessons.

"Love! what do you mean, John?"

"I mean, what's love?"

"Love's just love, I suppose."

(Yes, Mary, you are right to keep by the concrete; analysis kills love as well as other things. I once asked a useful-information young lady what her mother was. 'Oh, mamma's a _biped_!' I turned in dismay to her younger sister, and said, What do you say? 'Oh, my mother's just my mother.')

"But what part of speech is it?"

"It's a substantive or a verb." (Young Horne Tooke didn't ask her if it was an active or passive, an irregular or defective verb; an inceptive, as _calesco_, I grow warm, or _dulcesco_, I grow sweet; a frequentative or a desiderative, as _nupturio_, I desire to marry.)

"I think it is a verb," said John, who was deep in other diversions, besides those of Purley; "and I think it must have been originally _the Perfect of Live_, like thrive throve, strive strove."

"Capital, John!" suddenly growled Uncle Oldbuck, who was supposed to be asleep in his arm-chair by the fireside, and who snubbed and supported the entire household. "It was that originally, and it will be our own faults, children, if it is not that at last, as well as, ay, and more than at first. What does Richardson say, John? read him out." John reads--

    LOVE, _v. s._              To prefer, to desire, as an
      -LESS.                   object of possession or enjoyment
      -LY, _ad. av._           to delight in, to be
      -LILY.                   pleased or gratified with, to
      -LINESS.                 take pleasure or gratification
      -ER.                     in, delight in.
      -ING.                    _Love_, the _s_ is app. emph. to
      -INGLY.                  the passion between the sexes.
      -INGNESS.                _Lover_ is, by old writers, app. as
      -ABLE.[A]                _friend_--by male to male.
      -SOME.[B]                _Love_ is much used--pref.
      ERED.[C]          [A] _Wiclif._  [B] _Chaucer._  [C] _Shak._
    _Love-locks_,--locks (of hair) to set off the beauty; the
    loveliness.

A. S. _Luf-ian_; D. _Lie-ven_; Ger. _-ben_, amare, diligere. Wach. derives from _lieb_, bonum, because every one desires that which is good: _lieb_, it is more probable, is from _lieb-en_, grateful, and therefore _good_. It may at least admit a conjecture that A. S. _Lufian_, to _love_, has a reason for its application similar to that of L. _Di-ligere_ (_legere_, to gather), to take up or out (of a number), to choose, sc. one in preference to another, to prefer; and that it is formed upon A. S. _Hlif-ian_, to lift or take up, to pick up, to select, to prefer, Be- Over- Un-

_Uncle impatiently._--"Stuff; 'grateful!' 'pick up! stuff! These word-mongers know nothing about it. Live, love; that is it, the perfect of live."[1]

[Footnote 1: They are strange beings, these lexicographers. Richardson, for instance, under the word SNAIL, gives this quotation from Beaumont and Fletcher's _Wit at Several Weapons_,--

"Oh, Master Pompey! how is 't, man?

_Clown_--SNAILS, I'm almost starved with love
and cold, and one thing or other."

Any one else knows of course that it is "'s nails"--the contraction of the old oath or interjection--_God's nails_.]

After this, Uncle sent the cousins to their beds.

Mary's mother was in hers, never to rise from it again. She was a widow, and Mary was her husband's niece. The house quiet, Uncle sat down in his chair, put his feet on the fender, and watched the dying fire; it had a rich central glow, but no flame, and no smoke, it was flashing up fitfully, and bit by bit falling in. He fell asleep watching it, and when he slept, he dreamed. He was young; he was seventeen; he was prowling about the head of North St. David Street, keeping his eye on a certain door,--we call them common stairs in Scotland. He was waiting for Mr. White's famous English class for girls coming out. Presently out rushed four or five girls, wild and laughing; then came one, bounding like a roe:

"Such eyes were in her head,
And so much grace and power!"

She was surrounded by the rest, and away they went laughing, she making them always laugh the more. Seventeen followed at a safe distance, studying her small, firm, downright heel. The girls dropped off one by one, and she was away home by herself, swift and reserved. He, imposter as he was, disappeared through Jamaica Street, to reappear and meet her, walking as if on urgent business, and getting a cordial and careless nod. This beautiful girl of thirteen was afterwards the mother of our Mary, and died in giving her birth. She was Uncle Oldbuck's first and only sweetheart; and here was he, the only help our young Horne Tooke, and his mother and Mary had. Uncle awoke, the fire dead, and the room cold. He found himself repeating Lady John Scott's lines--

"When thou art near me,
Sorrow seems to fly,
And then I think, as well I may,
That on this earth there is no one
More blest than I.

But when thou leav'st me,
Doubts and fears arise,
And darkness reigns,
Where all before was light.
The sunshine of my soul
Is in those eyes,
And when they leave me
All the world is night.

But when thou art near me,
Sorrow seems to fly,
And then I feel, as well I may,
That on this earth there dwells not one
So blest as I."[2]

[Footnote 2: Can the gifted author of these lines and of their music not be prevailed on to give them and others to the world, as well as to her friends?]

Then taking down _Chambers's Scottish Songs_, he read aloud:--

"O I'm wat, wat,
O I'm wat and weary;
Yet fain wad I rise and rin,
If I thocht I would meet my dearie.
Aye waukin', O!
Waukin' aye, and weary;
Sleep, I can get nane
For thinkin' o' my dearie.

Simmer's a pleasant time,
Flowers o' every color;
The winter rins ower the heugh,
And I long for my true lover.

When I sleep I dream,
When I wauk I'm eerie,
Sleep I can get nane,
For thinkin' o' my dearie.

Lanely nicht comes on,
A' the lave are sleepin';
I think on my true love,
And blear my e'en wi' greetin'.

Feather beds are saft--
Pentit rooms are bonnie;
But ae kiss o' my dear love
Better's far than ony.

O for Friday nicht!--
Friday at the gloamin';
O for Friday nicht--
Friday's lang o' comin'!"

This love-song, which Mr. Chambers gives from recitation, is, thinks Uncle to himself, all but perfect; Burns, who in almost every instance, not only adorned, but transformed and purified whatever of the old he touched, breathing into it his own tenderness and strength, fails here, as may be seen in reading his version.

"Oh, spring's a pleasant time!
Flowers o' every color--
_The sweet bird builds her nest_,
And I lang for my lover.
Aye wakin', oh!
Wakin' aye and _wearie_;
Sleep I can get nane,
For thinkin' o' my dearie!

"When I sleep I dream,
When I wauk I'm eerie,
Rest I canna get,
For thinkin' o' my dearie.
Aye wakin', oh!
Wakin' aye and weary;
_Come, come, blissful dream_,
Bring me to my dearie.

"_Darksome_ nicht comes doun--
A' the lave are sleepin';
I think on my kind lad,
And blin' my een wi' greetin'.
Aye wakin', oh!
Wakin' aye and wearie;
_Hope is sweet_, but ne'er
Sae sweet as my dearie!"

How weak these italics! No one can doubt which of these is the better. The old song is perfect in the procession, and in the simple beauty of its thoughts and words. A ploughman or shepherd--for I hold that it is a man's song--comes in "wat, wat" after a hard day's work among the furrows, or on the hill. The _watness_ of wat, wat, is as much wetter than wet as a Scotch mist is more of a mist than an English one; and he is not only wat, wat, but "weary," longing for a dry skin and a warm bed and rest; but no sooner said and felt, than, by the law of contrast, he thinks on "Mysie" or "Ailie," his Genevieve; and then "all thoughts, all passions, all delights," begin to stir him, and "fain wad I rise and rin" (what a swiftness beyond run is "rin"!) Love now makes him a poet; the true imaginative power enters and takes possession of him. By this time his clothes are off, and he is snug in bed; not a wink can he sleep; that "fain" is domineering over him,--and he breaks out into what is as genuine passion and poetry, as anything from Sappho to Tennyson--abrupt, vivid, heedless of syntax. "Simmer's a pleasant time." Would any of our greatest geniuses, being limited to one word, have done better than take "pleasant?" and then the fine vagueness of "time!" "Flowers o' every color;" he gets a glimpse of "herself a fairer flower," and is off in pursuit. "The water rins ower the heugh" (a steep precipice); flinging itself wildly, passionately over, and so do I long for my true lover. Nothing can be simpler and finer than

"When I sleep, I dream;
When I wauk, I'm eerie."

"Lanely nicht;" how much richer and touching than "darksome." "Feather beds are saft;" "paintit rooms are bonnie;" I would infer from this, that his "dearie," his "true love," was a lass up at "the big house"--a dapper Abigail possibly--at Sir William's at the Castle, and then we have the final paroxysm upon Friday nicht--Friday at the gloamin'! O for Friday nicht!--Friday's lang o' comin'!--it being very likely Thursday before daybreak, when this affectionate _ululatus_ ended in repose.

Now, is not this rude ditty, made very likely by some clumsy, big-headed Galloway herd, full of the real stuff of love? He does not go off upon her eyebrows, or even her eyes; he does not sit down, and in a genteel way announce that "love in thine eyes forever sits," &c. &c., or that her feet look out from under her petticoats like little mice: he is far past that; he is not making love, he is in it. This is one and a chief charm of Burns' love-songs, which are certainly of all love-songs except those wild snatches left to us by her who flung herself from the Leucadian rock, the most in earnest, the tenderest, the "most moving delicate and full of life." Burns makes you feel the reality and the depth, the truth of his passion; it is not her eyelashes or her nose, or her dimple, or even

"A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I' the bottom of a cowslip,"

that are "winging the fervor of his love;" not even her soul; it is herself. This concentration and earnestness, this _perfervor_ of our Scottish love poetry, seems to me to contrast curiously with the light, trifling philandering of the English; indeed, as far as I remember, we have almost no love-songs in English, of the same class as this one, or those of Burns. They are mostly either of the genteel, or of the nautical (some of these capital), or of the comic school. Do you know the most perfect, the finest love-song in our or in any language; the love being affectionate more than passionate, love in possession not in pursuit?

"Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast
On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
My plaidie to the angry airt,
I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee:
Or did Misfortune's bitter storms
Around thee blaw, around thee blaw,
Thy bield should be my bosom,
To share it a', to share it a'.

"Or were I in the wildest waste,
Sae black and bare, sae black and bare,
The desert were a paradise,
If thou wert there, if thou wert there:
Or were I monarch o' the globe,
Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign,
The brightest jewel in my crown
Wad be my queen, wad be my queen."

The following is Mr. Chambers' account of the origin of this song:--Jessy Lewars had a call one morning from Burns. He offered, if she would play him any tune of which she was fond, and for which she desired new verses, that he would do his best to gratify her wish. She sat down at the piano, and played over and over the air of an old song, beginning with the words--

"The robin cam' to the wren's nest,
And keekit in, and keekit in:
'O weel's me on your auld pow!
Wad ye be in, wad ye be in?
Ye' se ne'er get leave to lie without,
And I within, and I within,
As lang 's I hae an auld clout,
To row ye in, to row ye in.'"

Uncle now took his candle, and slunk off to bed, slipping up noiselessly that he might not disturb the thin sleep of the sufferer, saying in to himself--"I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee;" "If thou wert there, if thou wert there;" and though the morning was at the window, he was up by eight, making breakfast for John and Mary.

* * * * *

Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away; but love is of God, and cannot fail.

[The end]
John Brown's essay: "oh, I'm Wat, Wat!"

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