line 49. gammon (O.  Fr. gambon, Lat. gamba, ’joint of a leg’), the buttock or thigh of a hog salted and dried; the lower end of a flitch.

Stanza iv. line 73.  ‘The winds of March’ (Winter’s Tale, iv. 3. 120), are a prominent feature of the month.  The freshness of May has fascinated the poets since it was told by Chaucer (Knightes’ Tale, 175) how Emelie arose one fine morning in early summer:—­

     ’Emilie, that fairer was to scene
      Than is the lilie on hire stalke grene,
      And fresscher than the May with floures newe.’

line 76.  Cp.  ‘Jock o’ Hazeldean’:—­

     ‘His step is first in peaceful ha’,
      His sword in battle keen.’

line 78. buxom (A.  S. bocsum, flexible, obedient, from BUGAN, to bend) here means lively, fresh, brisk.  Cp.  Henry V, iii. 6. 27:—­

     ’Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart,
      And of buxom valour.

Stanza vii. line 112.  Cp.  Spenser’s Epithalamium:—­

     ’Yet never day so long but late would passe,
      Ring ye the bels to make it weare away.’

A familiar instance of ‘speed’ as a trans. verb is in Pope’s Odyssey, xv. 83:—­’Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.’

Stanza VIII. line 120.  St. Valentine’s day is Feb. 14, when birds pair and lovers (till at any rate recent times) exchange artistic tokens of affection.  The latter observance is sadly degenerated.  See Professor Skeat’s note to ‘Parlement of Foules,’ line 309, in Chaucer’s Minor Poems (Clarendon Press).

line 122.  The myth of Philomela has been a favourite with English sentimental poets.  The Elizabethan Barnefield writes the typical lyric on the theme.  These lines contain the myth :—­

     ’She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
      Lean’d her breast against a thorn,
      And there sung the dolefullest ditty
      That to hear it was great pity.’

Stanza ix.  In days when harvesting was done with the sickle, reapers from the Highlands and from Ireland came in large numbers to the Scottish Lowlands and cut the crops.  At one time a piper played characteristic melodies behind the reapers to give them spirit for their work.  Hence comes—­

     ’Wha will gar our shearers shear? 
      Wha will bind up the brags of weir?’

in a lyric by Hamilton of Gilbertfield (1665-1751).  The reaper’s song is the later representative of this practice.  See Wordsworth’s ’Solitary Highland Reaper’—­immortalized by her suggestive and memorable singing—­and compare the pathetic ‘Exile’s Song’ of Robert Gilfillan (1798-1850):—­

     ’Oh! here no Sabbath bell
      Awakes the Sabbath morn;
      Nor song of reapers heard
      Among the yellow corn.’

For references to Susquehanna and the home-longing of the exile, see Campbell’s ‘Gertrude of Wyoming,’ I. i.-vi.  The introduction of reaping-machines has minimised the music and poetry of the harvest field.