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LAST TIME I WENT O'ER THE MOOR. AKA – "The last time I came o'er the Moor." AKA and see "Hither Dear Husband Turn Your Eyes." Scottish, Air (4/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Kidson (1922) identifies the air as an early Scottish tune. The song to the air was written by poet Allan Ramsay (1686-1758), who, according to poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), quoted in Burns' Reliques, found the first line of this song ("The last time I came o'er the muir") and then composed the rest of the verses to suit the first line. It was printed in his Tea-Table Miscellany (1724-27). William Thompson, the editor of Orpheus Caledonius (1725–1726), credited himself with setting the melody to music, but in actuality, the tune was considerably older than both he and Ramsay. An early version of the tune was entered into the Skene Manuscript (1630), a tablature manuscript for the mandora belonging to Sir John Skene and (according to Stenhouse, compiled when he was a young man, with the first lines of the song to which Ramsay adapted both song and music:

Alace! that I came o'er the moor,
And left my love behind me.

There was speculation (by Robert Chambers, for one) that the original song may have had words "unpresentable to delicate ears", and that Ramsay changed the original idea of the title and wrote entirely different words; the pre-Ramsay song has not survived, however. Ramsay's song proved popular enough to be parodied in John Gay's Beggar's Opera of 1729 (Air LI, Act III, scene IV), and it continued to be printed on songsheets and anthologized in collections and songsters throughout the 18th, and into the 19th centuries. It appears, for example, in Calliope: or, The Musical Miscellany (1788, Song XXIV, pp. 44-45), and in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, vol. 1 (1787). The melody was also entered into a few amateur musicians' copybooks of the period. A song setting was composed by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) [Hob XXXIa,199, JHW. XXXII/3, no. 228, voice and piano] at the behest of Scottish music publisher George Thomson. Ramsay's song begins:

The last time I came o'er the moor,
I left my love behind me,
Ye pow'rs, what pain do I endure,
When soft Ideas mind me!
Soon as the ruddy morn display'd,
The beaming day ensuing,
I met betimes my lovely maid,
In fit retreats for wooing.

The words have not fared as well as has the melody however. Ramsay's lines have been criticized in literary circles as uninspired, and certainly not his best work. Robert Burns himself felt so, for in one of his letters to publisher Thomson he wrote: "...there are several lines in it which are beautiful, but, in my opinion--pardon me, revered shade of Ramsay! the song is unworthy of the divine air." However, given the chance to revised the words for the Scots Musical Museum, Burns declined.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Davidson (Gems/Collection of Scottish Melody), c. 1860; p. 15. Graham (Songs of Scotland Adapted to their Appropriate Melodies), 1854; pp. 88-89. Howe (1000 Jigs and Reels), c. 1867; p. 149. Manson (Hamilton's Universal Tune-Book, vol. 1), 1844; p. 9. McGibbon (Collection of Scots Tunes, vol. 3), 1762; p. 80. Mulhollan (Selection of Irish and Scots Tunes), Edinburgh, 1804; p. 5. Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, vol. 2), 1760; p. 24. Thumoth (12 Scotch and 12 Irish Airs), 1742; No. 8, pp. 36–37. Watts (The Musical Miscellany, Vol 1), 1729; pp. 142-144.

Recorded sources:

See also listing at:
Hear Haydn's setting sung on youtube.com [1]

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