Thursday, April 18, 2013
Cut, Cut! Na, Na!
Susanna Blamire (1747-1794), "The Nabob," in her Poetical Works, ed. Henry Lonsdale (Edinburgh: John Menzies, 1842), pp. 198-202 (5th stanza, p. 200):
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Some pensy chiels, a new sprung race,An earlier version, in note on p. 201:
Wad next their welcome pay,
Wha shudder'd at my Gothic wa's,
And wish'd my groves away:
"Cut, cut," they cried, "those aged elms,
Lay low yon mournfu' pine:"
Na! na! our fathers' names grow there,
Memorials o' langsyne.
Some hafflin' chiels, a new sprung race,"Our fathers' names grow there" because they carved their names or initials into the bark, and as the bark expands the letters become larger. A chiel is a child, but according to Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary it can also refer to adults, and here (I think) means young women. Wright, s.v. pensy, cites this passage under sense 3 ("Delicate, fastidious; having a poor appetite"). As for hafflin' in the earlier version, I suspect it's a form of halfling in the sense of "half-witted," rather than a participle from haffle (i.e. "stammering"). Langsyne is "long since, long ago" or "time past," as in auld lang syne.
Wad next their welcome pay,
Wha shudder'd at my Gothic walls,
And wish'd my groves away:
"Cut, cut those odious trees," they cried,
"And low lay yonder pine:"
Deed no; your fathers' names grow there,
Memorials o' langsyne!
Labels: arboricide
