TO RUIN.

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,

Full on thy bloom,

Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight,

Shall be thy doom!

TO RUIN.

ALL hail! inexorable lord!

At whose destruction-breathing word
The mightiest empires fall!
Thy cruel, woe-delighted train,
The ministers of grief and pain,
A sullen welcome, all!

With stern-resolved, despairing eye,
I see each aimèd dart;

For one has cut my dearest tie,
And quivers in my heart.

Then lowering and pouring,

The storm no more I dread;
Though thickening, and blackening,
Round my devoted head.

And thou grim power, by life abhorred,
While life a pleasure can afford,
Oh, hear a wretch's prayer!

No more I shrink appalled, afraid;
I court, I beg thy friendly aid,
To close this scene of care!
When shall my soul, in silent peace,
Resign life's joyless day;

My weary heart its throbbing cease,
Cold mould'ring in the clay ?

No fear more, no tear more,
To stain my lifeless face;
Enclasped, and graspèd
Within thy cold embrace!

61

TO MISS LOGAN,

WITH BEATTIE'S POEMS, AS A NEW YEAR'S GIFT, JAN. 1, 1787.

AGAIN the silent wheels of time

Their annual round have driven,

And you, though scarce in maiden prime,
Are so much nearer heaven.

No gifts have I from Indian coasts
The infant year to hail;

I send you more than India boasts
In Edwin's simple tale.

Our sex with guile and faithless love
Is charged, perhaps too true;
But may, dear maid, each lover prove
An Edwin still to you!

THE LAMENT.

OCCASIONED BY THE UNFORTUNATE ISSUE OF A FRIEND'S AMOUR.

[The Lament was composed on that unfortunate passage of his matrimonial history which I have mentioned in my letter to Mrs. Dunlop, after the first distraction of his feelings had a little subsided.-GILBERT BURNS.]

Alas! how oft does Goodness wound itself,

And sweet affection prove the spring of woe!-HOME.

O THOU pale orb, that silent shines,
While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch that inly pines,
And wanders here to wail and weep!
With woe I nightly vigils keep,

Beneath thy wan unwarming beam;
And mourn, in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream.

I joyless view thy rays adorn
The faintly marked distant hill:
I joyless view thy trembling horn
Reflected in the gurgling rill,
My fondly fluttering heart, be still!

Thou busy power, Remembrance, cease!

Ah! must the agonizing thrill

For ever bar returning peace!

No idly feigned poetic pains,

My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim;
No shepherd's pipe-Arcadian strains;
No fabled tortures, quaint and tame :
The plighted faith; the mutual flame;
The oft attested Powers above;
The promised father's tender name;
These were the pledges of my love!

THE LAMENT.

Encircled in her clasping arms,

How have the raptured moments flown!
How have I wished for fortune's charms,
For her dear sake, and hers alone!
And must I think it! is she gone,

My secret heart's exulting boast ?
And does she heedless hear my groan?
And is she ever, ever lost?

Oh! can she bear so base a heart,
So lost to honour, lost to truth,
As from the fondest lover part,

The plighted husband of her youth?
Alas! life's path may be unsmooth!

Her way may lie through rough distress! Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe, Her sorrows share, and make them less?

Ye winged hours that o'er us past,
Enraptured more, the more enjoyed,
Your dear remembrance in my breast,
My fondly treasured thoughts employed.
That breast, how dreary now, and void,
For her too scanty once of room!
Ev'n every ray of hope destroyed,
And not a wish to gild the gloom!

The morn that warns th' approaching day,
Awakes me up to toil and woe:

I see the hours in long array,

That I must suffer, lingering, slow. Full many a pang, and many a throe, Keen recollection's direful train, Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low, Shall kiss the distant, western main.

And when my nightly couch I try,

Sore harassed out with care and grief, My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye, Keep watchings with the nightly thief: Or, if I slumber, Fancy, chief,

Reigns haggard-wild, in sore affright: Ev'n day, all bitter, brings relief

From such a horror-breathing night.

Oh, thou bright queen, who o'er th' expanse
Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway!
Oft has thy silent marking glance

Observed us, fondly wandering, stray!

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The time, unheeded, sped away,
While Love's luxurious pulse beat high,
Beneath thy silver gleaming ray,
To mark the mutual kindling eye.

Oh, scenes in strong remembrance set!
Scenes, never, never to return!
Scenes, if in stupor I forget,

Again I feel, again I burn!
From every joy and pleasure torn,
Life's weary vale I'll wander through;
And hopeless, comfortless, I'll mourn
A faithless woman's broken vow.

ON A SCOTCH BARD,

GONE TO THE WEST INDIES.

A'YE wha live by soups o' drink,
A'
ye wha live by crambo-clink,'
A' ye wha live and never think,

Come mourn wi' me!

Our billie's gien us a' a jink,"

An' owre the sea.

Lament him a' ye rantin' core,'
Wha dearly like a random splore,5
Nae mair he'll join the merry roar
In social key;

For now he's ta'en anither shore,

An' owre the sea.

6

The bonnie lasses weel may wiss him,
And in their dear petitions place him:
The widows, wives, an' a' may bless him,
Wi' tearfu' e'e;

For weel I wat they'll sairly miss him
That's owre the sea.

O Fortune, they hae room to grumble!
Hadst thou ta'en aff some drowsy bumble,
Wha can do nought but fyke and fumble,

"Twad been nae plea;

But he was gleg as ony wumble,

That's owre the sea.

ON A SCOTCH BARD.

1

Auld, cantie Kyle' may weepers wear,
An' stain them wi' the saut, saut tear;
"Twill mak' her poor auld heart, I fear,
In flinders 2 flee;

He was her laureate monie a year,

That's owre the sea.

The Muse was a' that he took pride in,
That's owre the sea

Jamaica bodies use him weel,
An' hap' him in a cozie biel: 8
Ye'll find him aye a dainty chiel,

And fou o' glee;

He wad na wranged the vera de’il,

That's owre the sca.

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