TO A YOUNG LADY (MISS JESSIE LEWARS,

DUMFRIES),

WITH BOOK WHICH THE BARD PRESENTED TO HER.

THINE be the volumes, Jessy fair,
And with them take the Poet's prayer;
That Fate may in her fairest page,
With every kindliest, best presage,
Of future bliss enrol thy name:
With native worth, and spotless fame,
And wakeful caution still aware
Of ill-but chief, man's felon snare;
All blameless joys on earth we find,
And all the treasures of the mind-
These be thy guardian and reward;
So prays thy faithful friend, the Bard.

SONNET,

WRITTEN ON THE 25TH JANUARY, 1793, THE BIRTHDAY OF THE

AUTHOR, ON HEARING A THRUSH SING IN A MORNING WALK.

SING on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain;

See agèd Winter, 'mid his surly reign,
At thy blithe carol clears his furrowed brow.

So in lone Poverty's dominion drear,

Sits meek Content, with light unanxious heart,
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part,
Nor asks if they bring ought to hope or fear.

I thank thee, Author of this opening day!

Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies!
Riches denied, Thy boon was purer joys,

What wealth could never give nor take away!

Yet come, thou child of poverty and care!

The mite high Heaven bestowed, that mite with thee

I'll share.

SONNET

ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT RIDDEL, ESQ., OF GLENRIDDEL.

No more, ye warblers of the wood, no more!

Nor pour your descant, grating, on my soul:

Thou young-eyed Spring, gay in thy verdant stole-
More welcome were to me grim Winter's wildest roar.

How can ye charm, ye flowers, with all your dyes?
Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend!
How can I to the tuneful strain attend?

That strain flows round the untimely tomb where Riddel lies!

Yes, pour, ye warblers, pour the notes of woe!
And soothe the Virtues weeping o'er his bier:
The Man of Worth, who has not left his peer,
Is in his narrow house, for ever darkly low.

Thee, Spring, again with joy shall others greet,
Me, mem'ry of my loss will only meet.

ON PASTORAL POETRY.

HAIL, Poesie! thou nymph reserved!
In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerved
Frae common sense, or sunk enerved

'Mang heaps o' clavers !!

And och! o'er aft thy joes 2 ha'e starved,

Mid a' thy favours!

Say, Lassie, why thy train amang,
While loud the trump's heroic clang,
And sock or buskin skelp alang

To death or marriage;

Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang,
But wi' miscarriage?

In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives;
Eschylus' pen Will Shakespeare drives;
Wee Pope, the knurlin,3 till him rives

Horatian fame ;

In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives
Ev'n Sappho's flame.

1 Nonsense.

2 Lovers.

3 Dwarf.

But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?
They 're no herd's ballats, Maro's catches;
Squire Pope but busks his skinklin1 patches
O' heathen tatters:

I pass by hunders, nameless wretches,

That ape their betters.

Yes! there is ane; a Scottish callan!
There's ane: come forrit, honest Allan !2
Thou need na jouk behint the hallan,*
A chiel sae clever;

The teeth o' Time may gnaw Tantallan,
But thou's for ever.

Thou paints auld Nature to the nines,"
In thy sweet Caledonian lines;

Nae gowden stream through myrtles twines,
Where Philomel,

While nightly breezes sweep the vines,

6

Her griefs will tell!

In gowany glens thy burnie strays,
Where bonnie lasses bleach their claes:
Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,
Wi' hawthorns gray,
Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays
At close o' day.

Thy rural loves are Nature's sel';
Nae bombast spates 7 o' nonsense swell;
Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell

O' witchin' love,

That charm that can the strongest quell,
The sternest move.

1 Small.

2 Allan Ramsay, author of the "Gentle Shepherd."

A partition-wall in a cottage, or a seat of turf outside it.

5

Exactly.

6

Daisied.

3 Hide.

7 Bursts.

POEM ON LIFE.

ADDRESSED TO COLONEL DE PEYSTER, DUMFRIES, 1796.

My honoured Colonel, deep I feel
Your interest in the Poet's weal;
Ah! now sma' heart hae I to speel

The steep Parnassus,

Surrounded thus by bolus pill

And potion glasses.

Oh, what a canty warld were it,

Would pain and care, and sickness spare it;
And fortune favour worth and merit
As they deserve!

(And aye a rowth, roast beef and claret;
Syne wha wad starve?)

Dame Life, though fiction out may trick her,
And in paste gems and frippery deck her;
Oh! flickering, feeble, and unsicker

I've found her still,

Aye wavering, like the willow-wicker,
'Tween good and ill.

Then that cursed carmagnole, auld Satan,
Watches, like baudrans by a rattan,
Our sinfu' saul to get a claut on
Wi' felon ire;

Syne, whip! his tail ye'll ne'er cast saut on,
He's off like fire.

Ah, Nick! ah, Nick! it is na fair,
First showing us the tempting ware,
Bright wines and bonnie lasses rare,
To put us daft;

Syne weave, unseen, thy spider snare
O' hell's damned waft.

Poor man, the fly, aft bizzes by,

And aft as chance he comes thee nigh,
Thy auld damned elbow yeuks wi' joy
And hellish pleasure;

Already in thy fancy's eye,

Thy sicker treasure.

Soon heels o'er gowdie! in he gangs,
And like a sheep-head on a tangs,

Thy girning laugh enjoys his pangs
And murdering wrestle,

As dangling in the wind he hangs
A gibbet's tassel.

But lest you think I am uncivil,

To plague you with this draunting drivel,
Abjuring a' intentions evil,

I quat my pen:

The Lord preserve us frae the devil!
Amen! amen!

3

A VISION.1

As I stood by yon roofless tower,
Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air,
Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower,
And tells the midnight moon her care.

The winds were laid, the air was still,
The stars they shot alang the sky;
The fox was howling on the hill,
And the distant echoing glens reply.
The stream, adown its hazelly path,
Was rushing by the ruined wa's,
Hasting to join the sweeping Nith,
Whase distant roaring swells and fa's.

The cauld blue north was streaming forth
Her lights, wi' hissing eerie din,
Athort the lift they start and shift,
Like fortune's favours, tint as win.2

By heedless chance I turned mine eyes,
And by the moonbeam, shook to see
A stern and stalwart ghaist arise,
Attired as minstrels wont to be.

Had I a statue been o' stane,

His darin' look had daunted me;
And on his bonnet graved was plain,

The sacred posie-Libertie!

This is the second poem suggested by the ruins of Lincluden Abbey.

2 Lost as soon as won.

3 Variation: Now looking over firth and fauld,

Her horn the pale-faced Scynthia reared;
When, lo, in form of minstrel auld,

A stern and stalwart ghaist appeared.