Album Summary: William Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius (1725) was a landmark publication; the first ever large-scale collection of "Scotch Songs" in print — 50 songs arranged with un-figured bass, most with lyrics from Allan Ramsay's Scots Songs and Tea-Table Miscellany, plus an appendix of melodic reductions. It was an instant hit and in 1733, expanded into 2 volumes with 100 songs. Indeed, Thomson's Orpheus set the standard format for Scots Song settings for the rest of the eighteenth century, including those of Robert Burns in The Scots Musical Museum. This ScotMus.com album is a faithful reprint of the song arrangements from the historic 1st edition of 1725.
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Beneath the cooling Shade we lay
Gazing and chastly sporting; We kiss'd and promis'd Time away, 'Till Night spread her black Curtain. I pitied all beneath the Skies, Ev'n Kings, when she was nigh me; In Raptures I beheld her Eyes, Which could but Ill deny me. |
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Shou'd I be call'd where Cannons rore,
Where mortal Steel may wound me, Or cast upon some foreign Shore, Where Dangers may surround me: Yet Hopes again to see my Love, To feast on glowing Kisses, Shall make my Cares at Distance move, In Prospect of such Blisses. |
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In all my Soul, their's not one Place
To let a Rival enter; Since she excells in every Grace, In her my Love shall center. Sooner the Seas shall cease to flow, Their Waves the Alps shall cover, On Greenlands Ice shall Roses grow, Before I cease to Love her. |
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The next Time I go o'er the Moor,
She shall a Lover find me, And that my Faith is firm and pure, Tho' I left her behind me: Then Hymen's sacred Bonds shall chain My Heart to her fair Bosom, There, while my Being does remain, My Love more fresh shall blossom. |