Beschreibung:

BURNS, ROBERT. Autograph manuscript of the song "Auld Lang Syne," comprising five four-line stanzas and four-line chorus, titled at the head of the sheet, the stanzas numbered and the chorus indicated, with four words neatly lined through and corrected by the poet in two lines. N.p., n.d. [after 1788?]. 1 page, folio, 323 x 199 mm. (12¾ x 7.7/8 in)., rectangular piece cut from top right-hand margin (repaired with old paper), a few small stains along old folds, small hole at fold intersection in upper portion resulting in loss of one word ("be") in third line of first stanza . THE ONLY MANUSCRIPT OF THE IMMORTAL "AULD LANG SYNE" STILL IN PRIVATE HANDS Auld Lang Syne 1 Should auld acquaintance [be] forgot And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o' lang syne? Chorus For auld lang syne, my jo, For auld lang syne We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet For auld lang syne. 2 And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup! [ tankard ] And surely I'll be mine! And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet For auld lang syne. For auld &c 3 We twa hae run about the braes, And pou'd the gowans fine; [ daisies ] But we've wander'd many a weary fitt, [ foot ] Sin auld lang syne. For auld &c 4 We twa hae paidl'd in the burn, [ paddled] [ brook ] Frae morning sun till dine; [ noon ] But seas between us braid hae roar'd, [ broad ] Sin auld lang syne. For auld &c 5 And there's a hand, my trusty fiere! [ comrade ] And gie's and hand o' thine! And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught, [ draught ] For auld lang syne For auld &c... As the Burns scholar G. Ross Roy has written, a case may be made that " Auld Lang Syne is the best known 'English' song in the world, & perhaps the best known in any language if we except national anthems. The song is certainly known throughout the English-speaking world, including countries which were formerly part of the British empire. It is also known in most European countries, including Russia, as well as in China and Japan" ( Auld Lang Syne , Greenock: Black Pennell Press, 1984, p.5). Usually, the song functions as a dissmissory, a song of parting, evoking remembrance tinged with melancholy. The origins of the song, whose refrain and title mean, literally, "old long since," remain obscure. A song using the phrase was published by Allan Ramsay in his Tea-Table Miscellany (1724), and some similarities exist to a ballad found in the Bannatyne Manuscript, compiled about 1568. Burns, an enthusiastic collector of traditional Scots song, claimed to have collected it from the singing of an old man on one of his several trips about Scotland in 1787-1788, but it is more likely that he wrote the song, incorporating the pre-existing phrase "auld lang syne," which he found particularly moving. "Song--verse married to music--was Burns' earliest, his latest, his strongest, and his most enduring poetic interest" (R.M. Fitzhugh, Robert Burns The Man and the Poet , 1970, p.328). "There is," Burns wrote, "a noble sublimity, a heart-melting tenderness in some of these ancient fragments which show them to be the work of a masterly hand." Elsewhere, he spoke of finding "a certain something in the old Scotch songs, a wild happiness of thought and expression which peculiarly marks them." Having achieved a measure of literary fame through the publication of his own Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Kilmarnock, 1786,; Edinburgh, 1787), Burns undertook to edit, for the Edinburgh publisher James Johnson a collection of Scottish songs entitled The Scots Musical Museum. It was in the first part of this anthology (1787) that the verses "Auld Lang Syne" first appeared, set to a different tune than that to which it is today inextricably linked. Of the several hundred Scots songs Burns edited, refurbished or composed, "Auld Lang Syne" was clearly a particular favorite. In 1788, in a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, he asked, "Is not the Scotch phrase "auld land syne" exceedingly expressive? There is an old song an