LINES

WRITTEN AND PRESENTED TO MRS. KEMBLE,
ON SEEING HER IN THE CHARACTER OF

YARICO.

KEMBLE thou cur'st

my

unbelief

Of Moses and his rod;

At Yarico's sweet notes of grief,
The rock with tears had flow'd.

Dumfries Theatre, 1794.

LINES

WRITTEN ON WINDOWS OF THE GLOBE TAVERN,

DUMFRIES

THE greybeard, old wisdom, may boast of his trea

sures

Give me with gay Folly to Live;

I grant him his calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures Butally has raptures to give.

I murde hate by field or flood,

'Tho' glory's name may screen us;
VOL.11.-1

In wars at hame I'll spend my blood,
Life-giving war of Venus.

The deities that I adore,

Are social Peace and Plenty,
I'm better pleas'd to make one more,
Than be the death of twenty.

My bottle is my holy pool,

That heals the wounds o' care an' dool;
And pleasure is a wanton trout,

An' ye drink it, y'll find him out.

In politics if thou would'st mix,
And mean thy fortunes be;
Bear this in mind, be deaf and blind,
Let great folks hear and see.

LINES

WRITTEN ON A WINDOW, AT THE KING'S ARMS
TAVERN, DUMFRIES.

YE men of wit and wealth, wi' all this sneering
'Gainst poor Excisemen, give the cause a hearing:
What are your landlord's rent-rolls? taxing ledgers:
What premiers, what? even Monarch's mighty
gaugers?

Nay what are priests? those seeming godly wise

men:

What are they, pray? but spiritual Excisemen.

A VERSE,

PRESENTED BY THE AUTHOR, TO THE MASTER OF A HOUSE, AT A PLACE IN THE HIGHLANDS, WHERE HE HAD BEEN HOSPITABLY ENTERTAINED.

WHEN Death's dark stream I ferry o'er,
A time that surely shall come :
In Heaven itself, I'll ask no more,
Than just a Highland welcome.

EPIGRAM.

[Burns accompanied by a friend, having gone to Inverary at a time when some company were there on a visit to the Duke of Argyll, finding himself and his companion entirely neglected by the Innkeeper, whose whole attention seemed to be occupied with the visitors of his Grace, expressed his disapprobation of the incivility with which they were treated in the following lines.]

WHOE'ER he be that sojourns here,
pity much his case,

Unless he comes to wait upon

The Lord their God his Grace.
There's naething here but Highland pride,
And Highland scab and hunger;

If Providence has sent me here,

'Twas surely in an anger.

EPIGRAM

ON ELPHINSTONE'S TRANSLATION OF MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS.

O THOU whom Poetry abhors,

Whom Prose has turned out of doors, Heard'st thou that groan ?-proceed no further, 'Twas laurell'd Martial roaring murder.

VERSES,

WRITTEN ON A WINDOW OF THE INN AT CARRON.

WE cam na here to view your warks

In hopes to be mair wise,

But only lest we gang to hell,

It may be nae surprise:

But when we tirl'd at your door,

Your porter dought na hear us;

Sae may, should we to hell's yetts come,
Your billy Satan sair us!

EPITAPH

ON A CELEBRATED RULING ELDER,

HERE Soûter****in death does sleep;
To h-ll, if he's gane thither,

Satan, gie him thy gear to keep,

He'll haud it weel thegither.

ON A NOISY POLEMIC.

BELOW thir stanes lie Jamie's banes:
O Death it's my opinion,

Thou ne'er took such a bleth'rin b-tch,
Into thy dark dominion!

ON WEE JOHNNY.

Hic jacet wee Johnnie.

WHOEVER thou art, O reader, know,
That Death has murder'd Johnny!
An' here his body lies fu' low-
For saul he ne'er had ony.

FOR G. H. ESQ.

THE poor man weeps-here G-n sleeps
Whom canting wretches blam'd:
But with such as he, where'er he be,
May I be sav'd or damn'd!

ON A WAG IN MAUCHLINE.

LAMENT him Mauchline husbands a',
He aften did assist ye:

For had ye staid whole weeks awa',
Your wives they ne'er had miss'd ye.