LIBERTY.

A FRAGMENT.

[Sent to Mrs. Dunlop in a letter. Burns says of it: "I am just going to trouble your critical patience with the first sketch of a stanza I have been framing as I passed along the road. The subject is Liberty. You know, my honoured friend, how dear the theme is to me. I design it as an irregular ode for General Washington's birthday. After having mentioned the degeneracy of other kingdoms, I come to Scotland thus: "—]

THEE, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among,
Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song,
To thee I turn with swimming eyes;

Where is that soul of freedom fled?
Immingled with the mighty dead,

Beneath the hallowed turf where Wallace lies!
Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death!
Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep;
Disturb not ye the hero's sleep,
Nor give the coward secret breath.

Is this the power in freedom's war
That wont to bid the battle rage?
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate,
Crushing the despot's proudest bearing:

That arm which, nerved with thundering fate,

Braved usurpation's boldest daring!

One quenched in darkness, like the sinking star,
And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless age.

BRUCE.

A FRAGMENT.

His royal visage seamed with many a scar,
That Caledonian reared his martial form,

Who led the tyrant-quelling war,

Where Bannockburn's ensanguined flood

Swelled with mingling hostile blood,

Soon Edward's myriads struck with deep dismay,

And Scotia's troop of brothers win their way.

(Oh, glorious deed to bay a tyrant's band!

Oh, heavenly joy to free our native land!)

While high their mighty chief poured on the doubling

storm.

VERSES

TO MISS GRAHAM, OF FINTRY, WITH A PRESENT OF SONGS. Written by the Poet on the blank side of the title-page of a copy of Thomson's "Select Scottish Songs."

HERE, where the Scottish Muse immortal lives,
In sacred strains and tuneful numbers joined,
Accept the gift, though humble he who gives;
Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind.
So may no ruffian-feeling in thy breast
Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among!
But Peace attune thy gentle soul to rest,
Or Love, ecstatic, wake his seraph song!

Or Pity's notes, in luxury of tears,

As modest Want the tale of woe reveals;
While conscious Virtue all the strain endears,
And heaven-born Piety her sanction seals.

VERSES

INTENDED TO BE WRITTEN BELOW A NOBLE EARL'S PICTURE.1

WHOSE is that noble, dauntless brow?
And whose that eye of fire?

And whose that generous, princely mien
E'en rooted foes admire ?

Stranger, to justly show that brow,

And mark that eye

of fire,

Would take His hand, whose vernal tints
His other works admire.

Bright as a cloudless summer sun,
With stately port he moves;
His guardian seraph eyes with awe
The noble ward he loves.

Among the illustrious Scottish sons
That chief thou may'st discern;
Mark Scotia's fond returning eye—
It dwells upon Glencairn!

"The enclosed stanzas," said the Poet, in a letter to his patron, the Earl of Glencairn, "I intended to write below a picture or profile of your lordship, could I have been so happy as to procure one with anything of a likeness."

LINES

1

SENT TO A GENTLEMAN WHOM HE HAD OFFENDED.

THE friend whom wild from wisdom's way
The fumes of wine infuriate send,
(Not moony madness more astray,)
Who but deplores that hapless friend?

Mine was th' insensate frenzied part;
Ah! why should I such scenes outlive!
Scenes so abhorrent to my heart!
"Tis thine to pity and forgive.

VERSES

ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WOODS NEAR DRUMLANRIG.2

As on the banks o' wandering Nith
Ae smiling summer morn I strayed,
And traced its bonny howes and haughs
Where linties sang and lambkins played,
I sat me down upon a craig,

3

And drank my fill o' fancy's dream,
When, from the eddying deep below,
Uprose the genius of the stream.
Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow,
And troubled like his wintry wave,
And deep as sughs the boding wind
Amang his eaves, the sigh he gave—
"And came ye here, my son," he cried,
"To wander in my birken shade?
To muse some favourite Scottish theme,
Or sing some favourite Scottish maid ?
"There was a time, it's nae lang syne,*

4

Ye might ha'e seen me in my pride,
When a' my banks sae bravely saw
Their woody pictures in my tide;
When hanging beech and spreading elm
Shaded my stream sae clear and cool;
And stately oaks their twisted arms

Threw broad and dark across the pool;

1 Mr. Riddel, at whose table Burns, after drinking too much, had spoken insultingly of royalty, the army, &c. &c. This apology was accepted by his kind host.

2 The Duke of Queensbury cut down these woods to enrich his daughter, the Countess of Yarmouth, by their sale. Since.

Sighs.

TO CHLORIS.

"When glinting through the trees appeared
The wee white cot aboon the mill,
And peacefu' rose its ingle reek,1
That slowly curled up the hill.
But now the cot is bare and cauld,
Its branchy shelter's lost and gane-
And scarce a stinted birk is left

To shiver in the blast its lane."

"Alas!" said I, " what ruefu' chance

2

Has twined ye o' your stately trees?
Has laid your rocky bosom bare?

Has stripped the cleeding 3 o' your braes?
Was it the bitter eastern blast,

That scatters blight in early spring?
Or was 't the wil'-fire scorched their boughs,
Or canker-worm wi' secret sting?

"Nae eastlin' blast," the sprite replied;
"It blew na here sae fierce and fell;
And on my dry and halesome banks
Nae canker-worms get leave to dwell:
Man! cruel Man!" the genius sighed,
As through the cliffs he sank him down-
"The worm that gnawed my bonny trees,
That reptile wears a ducal crown!"

149

!

TO CHLORIS.

"Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend,
Nor thou the gift refuse,

Nor with unwilling ear attend

The moralizing Muse.

Since thou, in all thy youth and charms,

Must bid the world adieu,

(A world 'gainst peace in constant arms,)
To join the friendly few.

Since thy gay morn of life o'ercast,
Chill came the tempest's lower;
(And ne'er misfortune's eastern blast
Did nip a fairer flower.)

4 Jean Lorimer, of Craigieburn Wood, near Moffat.

3 Clothing. She married a Mr.

Whelpdale, but was separated from him, and was residing at Dumfries

when Burns met her.

Since life's gay scenes must charm no more,
Still much is left behind;

Still nobler wealth hast thou in store-
The comforts of the mind!

Thine is the self-approving glow,
On conscious honour's part:
And, dearest gift of heaven below,
Thine, friendship's truest heart.

The joys refined of sense and taste,
With every Muse to rove:
And doubly were the Poet blest,
Those joys could he improve.

THE VOWELS.

A TALE.

"I'WAS where the birch and sounding thong are plied, The noisy domicile of pedant pride;

Where Ignorance her darkening vapour throws,
And Cruelty directs the thickening blows;

Upon a time, Sir Abece the great,

In all his pedagogic powers elate,

His awful chair of state resolves to mount,
And call the trembling Vowels to account.

First entered A, a grave, broad, solemn wight,
But, ah! deformed, dishonest to the sight!
His twisted head looked backward on his way,
And flagrant from the scourge, he grunted Ai!

Reluctant E stalked in; with piteous race
The jostling tears ran down his honest face!

That name, that well-worn name, and all his own,

Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne;
The Pedant stifles keen the Roman sound
Not all his mongrel diphthongs can compound;
And next, the title following close behind,
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assigned.

The cobwebbed Gothic dome resounded, Y!
In sullen vengeance, I disdained reply:
The Pedant swung his felon cudgel round,
And knocked the groaning vowel to the ground!