Robert Davidson was born in the parish of Morebattle, Roxburghshire, in
1779. The son of humble parents, he was sent to tend cattle in his tenth
year. He had received at the parish school a limited education; and he
devoted his leisure time on the hills to miscellaneous reading. Learning
scraps of old ballads from the cottage matrons, as they sung them at
their distaffs, he early began to essay imitations of these olden
ditties. As a farm-servant and an agricultural labourer, he continued
through life to seek repose from toil in the perusal of poetry and the
composition of verses. "My simple muse," he afterwards wrote, "oft
visited me at the plough, and made the labour to seem lighter and the
day shorter." In 1811, and in 1824, he published small collections of
verses. At the recommendation of some influential friends, he published,
in 1848, a compact little volume of his best pieces, under the title,
"Leaves from a Peasant's Cottage-Drawer;" and to which was prefixed a
well-written autobiographical sketch. He was often oppressed by poverty;
and, latterly, was the recipient of parochial relief. He died in the
parish of Hounam, on the 6th April 1855; and his remains rest in the
church-yard of his native parish. Many of his poems are powerful, both
in expression and sentiment; and several of his songs are worthy of a
place in the national minstrelsy. In private life he was sober, prudent,
and industrious.