The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : Compared with these, Italian thrills are tame; The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise; The priest-like father reads the sacred page, With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand: And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King, No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, *Pope's Windsor Forest. In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, In all the pomp of method, and of art, When men display to congregations wide Devotion's every grace, except the heart; The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; But haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul; And in his book of life the inmates poor enrol. Then homeward all take off their several way; And proffer up to Heaven the warm request For them and for their little ones provide; But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her loved at home, revered abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, "An honest man's the noblest work of God:" And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined! O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil, Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! And, oh! may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle. O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide That stream'd through Wallace's undaunted heart! Who dared so nobly stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die, the second glorious part, (The patriot's God peculiarly thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward;) O never, never, Scotia's realm desert: But still the patriot, and the patriot bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! EPISTLE TO DAVIE, A BROTHER POET January, While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw And bar the doors wi' driving snaw, And hing us owre the ingle, I set me down to pass the time, In hamely, westlin jingle. While frosty winds blaw in the drift, I grudge a wee the great folks' gift, I tent less, and want less Their roomy fire-side; *David Sillar, one of the club at Tarbolton, and author of a volume of poems in the Scottish dialect. But hanker and canker, To see their cursed pride. It's hardly in a body's power To keep, at times, frae being sour, How best o' chiels are whiles in want, While coofs on countless thousands rant, But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head, We're fit to win our daily bread, To lie in kilns and barns at e'en, Yet then content could mak us blest; Of truest happiness. The honest heart that's free frae a' Intended fraud or guile, However fortune kick the ba', Has aye some cause to smile: And mind still, you'll find still, A comfort this no sma'; What though, like commoners of air, * Ramsay. But either house or hall ? Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods, The sweeping vales, and foaming floods, In days when daisies deck the ground, On braes when we please, then, It's no in titles nor in rank; It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank, Nae treasures, nor pleasures, That maks us right or wrang Think ye, that sic as you and I, Wha drudge and drive through wet and dry, Think ye, are we less blest than they, |