Volume IV, song 330, page 340 - 'To the Rose bud' - Scanned...
Volume IV, song 330, page 340 - 'To the Rose bud' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
Verse 1: 'All Hail to thee thou bawmy bud, Thou charming child O simmer Hail; Ilk fragrant Thorn and lofty wood, Does nod thy welcome to the Vale.' 'Bawmy' or baumy means balmy in Old Scots whilst 'ilk' means each.
The 'Scots Musical Museum' is the most important of the numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Scottish song. When the engraver James Johnson started work on the second volume of his collection in 1787, he enlisted Robert Burns as contributor and editor. Burns enthusiastically collected songs from various sources, often expanding or revising them, whilst including much of his own work. The resulting combination of innovation and antiquarianism gives the work a feel of living tradition.
Burns was asked by his friend Robert Riddell to comment on some of the songs he had collected, on the interleaving pages of Riddell's copy of the 'Museum'. Of this song he wrote, 'This song is the composition of a __ Thomson, a joiner in the neighbourhood of Belfast. The tune is by Oswald, altered, evidently, from 'Jockie's gray breeks'.' Its inclusion in the 'Museum' is a little unusual. Burns was determined to include only songs of Scots origin, and the words to this composition are the work of an Irishman. The tune, nevertheless, appears to be Scottish.
Volume IV, song 330, page 340 - 'To the Rose bud' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)