The dialect is Angus, with unfamiliar notes to my Border
ear, and in every song there is the sound of the east wind and the
rain. Its chief note is longing, like all the poetry of exiles,
a chastened melancholy which finds comfort in the memory of old
unhappy things as well as of the beatitudes of youth. The metres are
cunningly chosen, and are most artful when they are simplest; and
in every case they provide the exact musical counterpart to the
thought. Mrs. Jacob has an austere conscience. She eschews facile
rhymes and worn epithets, and escapes the easy cadences of hymnology
which are apt to be a snare to the writer of folk-songs. She has
many moods, from the stalwart humour of "The Beadle o' Drumlee," and
"Jeemsie Miller," to the haunting lilt of "The Gean-Trees," and the
pathos of "Craigo Woods" and "The Lang Road." But in them all are
the same clarity and sincerity of vision and clean beauty of phrase.
Some of us who love the old speech have in our heads or in our
note-books an anthology of modern Scots verse. It is a small
collection if we would keep it select. Beginning with Principal
Shairp's "Bush aboon Traquair," it would include the wonderful
Nithsdale ballad of "Kirkbride," a few pieces from _Underwoods_,
Mr.
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