The sun has gane down o'er the lofty Benlomond,
And left the red clouds to preside o'er the scene,
While lanely I stray in the calm simmer gloamin'
To muse on sweet Jessie, the flower o' Dumblane.
How sweet is the brier, wi' its saft faulding blossom,
And sweet is the birk, wi' its mantle o' green;
Yet sweeter and fairer, and dear to this bosom,
Is lovely young Jessie, the flower o' Dumblane.
She's modest as ony, and blithe as she 's bonny;
For guileless simplicity marks her its ain;
And far be the villain, divested of feeling,
Wha 'd blight, in its bloom, the sweet flower o' Dumblane.
Sing on, thou sweet mavis, thy hymn to the e'ening,
Thou 'rt dear to the echoes of Calderwood glen;
Sae dear to this bosom, sae artless and winning,
Is charming young Jessie, the flower o' Dumblane.
How lost were my days till I met wi' my Jessie,
The sports o' the city seem'd foolish and vain;
I ne'er saw a nymph I would ca' my dear lassie,
Till charm'd with sweet Jessie, the flower o' Dumblane.
Though mine were the station o' loftiest grandeur,
Amidst its profusion I 'd languish in pain;
And reckon as naething the height o' its splendour,
If wanting sweet Jessie, the flower o' Dumblane.
[77] "Jessie, the flower o' Dumblane" was published in 1808, and has
since received an uncommon measure of popularity. The music, so suitable
to the words, was composed by R. A. Smith. In the "Harp of Renfrewshire"
(p. xxxvi), Mr Smith remarks that the song was at first composed in two
stanzas, the third being subsequently added. "The Promethean fire," says
Mr Smith, "must have been burning but _lownly_, when such commonplace
ideas could be written, after the song had been so finely wound up with
the beautiful apostrophe to the mavis, 'Sing on, thou sweet mavis, thy
hymn to the e'ening.'" The heroine of the song was formerly a matter of
speculation; many a "Jessie" had the credit assigned to her; and
passengers by the old stage-coaches between Perth and the south, on
passing through Dunblane, had pointed out to them, by the drivers, the
house of Jessie's birth. One writer (in the _Musical Magazine_, for May
1835) records that he had actually been introduced at Dunblane to the
individual Jessie, then an elderly female, of an appearance the reverse
of prepossessing! Unfortunately for the curious in such inquiries, the
heroine only existed in the imagination of the poet; he never was in
Dunblane, which, if he had been, he would have discovered that the sun
could not there be seen setting "o'er the lofty Benlomond." Mr Matthew
Tannahill states that the song was composed to supplant an old one,
entitled, "Bob o' Dumblane." Mr James Bowie, of Paisley, supplies the
information, that in consequence of improvements suggested from time to
time by R. A. Smith and William Maclaren, Tannahill wrote eighteen
different versions of this song.