WRITTEN IN FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE, ON
THOU whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deckt in silken stole,
Grave these counsels on thy soul.
Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
Hope not sunshine every hour,
Fear not clouds will always lower.
As youth and love, with sprightly dance,
Beneath thy morning star advance,
Pleasure with her siren air
May delude the thoughtless pair;
Let prudence bless enjoyment's cup,
Then raptured sip, and sip it up.
As thy day grows warm and high,
Life's meridan flaming nigh,
Dost thou spurn the humble vale ?
Life's proud summits wouldst thou scale?
Check thy climbing step, elate,
Evils lurk in felon wait:
Dangers, eagle-pinioned, bold,
Soar around each cliffy hold,
While cheerful peace, with linnet song,
Chants the lowly dells among.
As the shades of evening close,
Beck'ning thee to long repose!
As life itself becomes disease,
Seek the chimney-neuk of ease.
There ruminate with sober thought,
On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought;
And teach the sportive younkers round,
Saws of experience, sage and sound.
Say, Man's true, genuine estimate,
The grand criterion of his fate,
Is not, Art thou high or low?
Did thy fortune ebb or flow?
Did many talents gild thy span ?
Or frugal nature grudge thee one?
WRITTEN IN FRIARS - CARSE HERMITAGE.
Tell them, and press it on their mind,
As thou thyself must shortly find,
The smile or frown of awful Heaven,
To virtue or to vice is given.
Say, to be just, and kind, and wise,
There solid self-enjoyment lies;
That foolish, selfish, faithless ways,
Lead to the wretched, vile, and base.
Thus resigned and quiet, creep
To the bed of lasting sleep;
Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake,
Night, where dawn shall never break,
Till future life, future no more,
To light and joy the good restore,
To light and joy unknown before.
Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide!
Quod the beadsman of Nith-side.
Glenriddel Hermitage, June 28, 1788. From the MS.
THOU whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deckt in silken stole,
Grave these maxims on thy soul.
Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
Hope not sunshine every hour,
Fear not clouds will always lour,
Happiness is but a name,
Make content and ease thy aim.
Ambition is a meteor-gleam,
Fame, an idle, restless dream :
Peace, the tenderest flower of spring;
Pleasures, insects on the wing;
Those that sip the dew alone,
Make the butterflies thy own;
Those that would the bloom devour,
Crush the locusts, save the flower.
For the future be prepared,
Guard, wherever thou canst guard;
But thy utmost duly done,
Welcome what thou canst not shun.
Follies past give thou to air,
Make their consequence thy care:
Keep the name of Man in mind,
And dishonour not thy kind.
Reverence, with lowly heart,
Him whose wondrous work thou art;
Keep His goodness still in view,
Thy Trust, and thy Example too.
Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide!
Quod the beadsman of Nithe-side.
TO CLARINDA.1
CLARINDA, mistress of my soul,
The measured time is run!
The wretch beneath the dreary Pole,
So marks his latest sun.
To what dark cave of frozen night
Shall poor Sylvander hie?
Deprived of thee, his life and light,
The sun of all his joy!
We part-but, by these precious drops
That fill thy lovely eyes!
No other light shall guide my steps
Till thy bright beams arise.
She, the fair sun of all her sex,
Has blest my glorious day;
And shall a glimmering planet fix
My worship to its ray?
WITH A PRESENT OF A PAIR OF DRINKING-GLASSES.
FAIR empress of the Poet's soul,
And queen of poetesses;
Clarinda, take this little boon,
This humble pair of glasses.
And fill them high with generous juice,
As generous as your mind;
And pledge me in the generous toast-
"The whole of humankind!"
was the poetical appellation of Mrs. M'Lehose, whom he met in Edinburgh at the period of the publication of his poems.
"To those who love us !"--second fill;
But not to those whom we love;
Lest we love those who love not us!
A third-"To thee and me, love!"
Long may we live! long may we love!
And long may we be happy!
And may we never want a glass
Well charged with generous nappy
BEFORE I saw Clarinda's face
My heart was blithe and gay,
Free as the wind, or feathered race
That hop from spray to spray.
But now dejected I appear,
Clarinda proves unkind;
I, sighing, drop the silent tear,
But no relief can find.
In plaintive notes my tale rehearses
WhenI the fair have found;
On every tree appear my verses
That to her praise resound.
But she, ungrateful, shuns my sight,
My faithful love disdains,
My vows and tears her scorn excite-
Another happy reigns.
Ah, though my looks betray
I envy your success;
Yet love to friendship shall give way,
I cannot wish it less.
"I BURN, I burn, as when through ripened corn,
By driving winds, the crackling flames are borne!"
Now maddening, wild, I curse that fatal night;
Now bless the hour which charmed my guilty sight.
In vain the laws their feeble force oppose;
Chained at his feet they groan, Love's vanquished foes:
In vain Religion meets my shrinking eye;
I dare not combat-but I turn and fly:
Conscience in vain upbraids the unhallowed fire;
Love grasps its scorpions--stifled they expire;
Reason drops headlong from his sacred throne,
Your dear idea reigns, and reigns alone:
Each thought intoxicated homage yields,
And riots wanton in forbidden fields!
By all on high, adoring mortals know!
By all the conscious villain fears below!
By your dear self!-the last great oath I swear-
Nor life nor soul was ever half so dear!
MRS. FERGUSSON OF CRAIGDARROCH'S LAMENT
FOR THE DEATH OF HER SON.
FATE gave the word, the arrow sped,
And pierced my darling's heart;
And with him all the joys are fled
Life can to me impart.
By cruel hands the sapling drops,
In dust dishonoured laid;
So fell the pride of all my hopes,
My age's future shade.
The mother-linnet in the brake
Bewails her ravished young;
So I, for my lost darling's sake,
Lament the live-day long.
Death, oft I've feared thy fatal blow,
Now, fond, I bare my breast;
Oh, do thou kindly lay me low
With him I love, at rest!
FOR lords or kings I dinna mourn,
E'en let them die-for that they're born!
But, oh! prodigious to reflec' !
A towmont,' sirs, is gane to wreck !
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