Some spitefu' muirfowl bigs her nest,
To hatch and breed;
Alas! nae mair he'll them molest!-
Tam Samson's deid!
When August winds the heather wave,
And sportsmen wander by yon grave,
Three volleys let his memory crave
O' pouther and lead,
Till echo answer frae her cave,
Tam Samson's deid!
Heaven rest his saul, whare'er he be !
Is th' wish o mony mae than me;
He had twa fauts, or maybe three,
Yet what remead?
Ae social, honest man want we:
Tam Samson's deid!
Tam Samson's weel-worn clay here lies,
Ye canting zealots spare him!
If honest worth in heaven rise,
Ye'll mend or ye win near him.
Go, Fame, and canter like a filly
Through a' the streets and neuks o' Killie,
Tell every social, honest billie
For yet, unskaithed by Death's' gleg gullie,
Tam Samson's leevin'!
TO MR M'ADAM OF CRAIGENGILLAN.
Sir, o'er a gill I gat your card,
I trow it made me proud;
And when those legs to guid, warm kail,
Wi' welcome canna bear me;
A lee dyke-side, a sybow-tail,
And barley-scone, shall cheer me.
Heaven spare you lang to kiss the breath
O' many flowery simmers!
And bless your bonny lasses baith-
I'm tauld they're lo'esome kimmers!
And God bless young Dunaskin's laird,
The blossom of our gentry!
And may he wear an auld man's beard,
A credit to his country.
LEFT IN THE ROOM WHERE HE SLEPT.
OH thou dread Power, who reign'st above
I know thou wilt me hear,
When for this scene of peace and love,
I make my prayer sincere!
The hoary sire-the mortal stroke,
Long, long be pleased to spare,
To bliss his filial little flock,
And show what good men are.
She, who her lovely offspring eyes
With tender hopes and fears,
Oh bless her with a mother's joys,
But spare a mother's tears!
Their hope, their stay, their darling youth,
In manhood's dawning blush
Bless him, thou God of love and truth,
Up to a parent's wish!
The beautous, seraph sister-band,
With earnest tears I pray,
Thou knowest the snares on every hand
Guide thou their steps alway.
When soon or late they reach that coast,
O'er life's rough ocean driven,
May they rejoice, no wanderer lost,
A family in heaven!
THE BRIGS OF AYR.
INSCRIBED TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ., AYR.
THE simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough,
Learning his tuneful trade from every bough;
The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,
Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn bush;
The soaring-lark, the perching red-breast shrill,
Or deep-toned plovers, gray, wild-whistling o'er the hill;
Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed,
To hardy independence bravely bred,
By early poverty to hardship steeled,
And trained to arms in stern misfortune's field
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
Or labour hard the panegyric close,
With all the venal soul of dedicating prose?
No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings,
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard,
Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward!
Still, if some patron's generous care he tracc,
Skilled in the secret to bestow with grace;
When Ballantyne befriends his humble name,
And hands the rustic stranger up to fame,
With heartfelt throes his grateful bosom swells,
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.
'Twas when the stacks get on their winter hap,
And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap; thatch, rope, crop
Potatoe bings are snuggèd up frae skaith
Of coming Winter's biting, frosty breath;
The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils,
Unnumbered buds and flowers' delicious spoils,
Sealed up with frugal care in massive waxen piles,
Are doomed by man, that tyrant o'er the weak,
The death To SUFFER, Sinoored wi' brimstone reek:
The thundering guns are heard on every side,
The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide;
The feathered field-mates, bound by nature's tie,
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie:
(What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds,
And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds!)
Nae mair the flower in field or meadow springs;
Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings,
Except. perhaps, the robin's whistling glee,
Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree :
The hoary morns precede the sunny days,
Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noon-tide blaze,
While thick the gossamer waves wanton in the rays.
"Twas in that season, when a simple Bard,
Unknown and poor, simplicity's reward,
Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr,
By whim inspired, or haply prest wi' care,
He left his bed, and took his wayward route,
And down by Simpson's wheeled the left about:
(Whether impelled by all-directing Fate,
To witness what I after shall narrate;
Or whether, rapt in meditation high,
He wandered out he knew not where or why)
The drowsy Dungeon-clock had numbered two,
And Wallace Tower had sworn the fact was true:
The tide-swoln Firth, with sullen sounding roar,
Through the still night dashed hoarse along the shore.
All else was hushed as Nature's closed e'e:
The silent moon shone high o'er tower and tree:
The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam,
Crept, gently-crusting, o'er the glittering stream.
When lo! on either hand the listening Bard,
The clanging sough of whistling wings is heard;
Two dusky forms dart through the midnight air,
Swift as the gos drives on the wheeling hare:
Ane on the Auld Brig his airy shape uprears,
The ither flutters o'er the rising piers:
Our warlock Rhymer instantly descried
The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside. (That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke, And ken the lingo of the spiritual folk;
Fays, Spunkies, Kelpies,* a', they can explain them,
And even the very deils they brawly ken them.)
Auld Brig appeared of ancient Pictish race,
The very wringles Gothic in his face :
He seemed as he wi' Time had warstl'd lang,
Yet, teughly doure, he bade an unco bang.+
New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat,
That he at Lon'on, frae ane Adams, got;
In's hand five taper staves as smooth's a bead,
Wi' virls and whirlygigums at the head.
The Goth was stalking round with anxious search,
Spying the time-worn flaws in every arch;
It chanced his new-come neebour took his ee,
And e'en a vexed and angry heart had he!
Wi' thieveless sneer to see his modish mien,
He, down the water, gies him his guid-e'en :-
I doubt na, frien', ye'll think ye're nae sheepshank,†
"Ance ye were streekit o'er frae bank to bank,
But gin ye be a brig as auld as me-
Though, faith, that day I doubt ye'll never see;
There'll be, if that date come, I'll wad a boddle,
Some fewer whigmaleeries in your noddle.
Auld Vandal, ye but show your little mense
Just much about it wi' your scanty sense;
Will your poor, narrow footpath of a street-
Whare twa wheelbarrows tremble when they meet-
Your ruined, formless bulk o' stane and lime,
Compare wi', bonnie Brigs o' modern time?
Fairies, ignis fatuis, water sprites.
No contemptible one.
Toughly obdurate, endured a severe stroke.
There's men o' taste would tak the Ducat Stream,
Though they should cast the very sark and swim,
Ere they would grate their feelings wi' the view
Of sic an ugly Gothic hulk as you.
Conceited gowk, puff'd up wi' windy pride! This mony a year I've stood the flood and tide ;
And though wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn, age, sore enfeebled
I'll be a Brig when ye're a shapeless cairn!
As yet ye little ken about the matter,
But twa-three winters will inform ye better.
When heavy, dark, continued a'-day rains,
Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains;
When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil,
Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil,
Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course,
Or haunted Garpal draws his feeble source,
Aroused by blustering winds and spotting thowes,
In mony a torrent down his snaw-broo rowes;
While crashing ice, borne on the roaring speat,
Sweeps dams, and mills, and brigs a' to the gate;
And from Glenbuck* down to the Ratton-keyt
Auld Ayr is just one lengthened tumbling sea-
Then down ye'll hurl, AND MAY ye never rise!
And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring skies. muddy drops
A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost,
That Architecture's noble art is lost!
Fine Architecture, trowth, I needs must say't o't!
WE ARE SAE thankfu' that we've tint the gate o't!
Gaunt, ghastly, ghaist-alluring edifices,
Hanging with threatening jut, like precipices;
O'er-arching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves,
Supporting roofs fantastic, stony groves:
Windows, and doors in nameless sculpture drest,
With order, symmetry, or taste unblest;
Forms like some bedlam statuary's dream,
The crazed creations of misguided whim;
Forms might be worshipp'd on the bended knee,
And still the second dread command be free,
Their likeness is not found on earth, in air, or sea.
Mansions that would disgrace the building taste
Of any mason reptile, bird, or beast;
Fit only for a duited monkish race,
Or cuifs of latter times, wha held the notion
That sullen gloom was sterling true devotion;
Fancies that our good Brugh denies protection!
And soon may they expire, unblest with resurrection!
The source of the River Ayr.-B.
† A small landing place above the large key.
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