LINES

WRITTEN ON WINDOWS OF THE GLOBE TAVERN,

DUMFRIES.

THE graybeard, old Wisdom, may boast of his treas

ures,

Give me with gay Folly to live;

I grant him his calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures, But Folly has raptures to give.

I MURDER hate by field or flood,
Tho' glory's name may screen us;
In wars at hame I'll spend my blood-
Life-giving war of Venus.

The deities that I adore,

Are social Peace and Plenty:

I'm better pleas'd to make one more

Than be the death of twenty.

My bottle is my holy pool,

That heals the wounds o' care and door

And pleasure is a wanton trout,

An' ye drink it, ye'll find him out.

IN politics if thou would'st mix,
And mean thy fortunes be;

Bear this in mind- be deaf and blind
Let great folks hear and see.

LINES

WRITTEN ON A WINDOW, AT THE KING'S-ARMS TAVERN,

DUMFRIES.

YE men of wit and wealth, wi' a' this sneering
'Gainst poor Excisemen, give the cause a hearing:
What are your landlord's rent-rolls? taxing legers:
What premiers, what? even Monarch's mighty gaugers:
Nay, what are priests? those seeming godly wise men
What are they, pray? but spiritual Excisemen.

A VERSE,

PRESENTED BY THE AUTHOR, TO' THE MASTER OF A

HOUSE, AT A PLACE IN THE HIGHLANDS, WHERE HE HAD BEEN HOSPITABLY ENTERTAINED.

WHEN Death's dark stream I ferry o'er-
A time that surely shall come;
In Heaven itself, I'll ask no more,
Than just a Highland welcome.

EPIGRAM.

[Burns, accompanied by a friend, having gone to Inverary at a time when some company were there on a visit to the Duke of Argyll, finding himself and his companion entirely neglected by the innkeeper, whose whole attention seemed to be occupied with the visiters of his Grace, expressed his disapprobation of the incivility with which they were treated, in the following lines.]

WHOE'ER he be that sojourns here,

I pity much his case,

Unless he comes to wait upon

The Lord their God his Grace.
There's naething here but Highland pride,
And Highland scab and hunger;
If Providence has sent me here,
"Twas surely in an anger.

EPIGRAM

ON ELPHINSTONE'S TRANSLATION

OF MARTIAL'S EPI

GRAMS.

O THOU whom Poetry abhors,

Whom Prose has turned out of doors,

Heard'st thou that groan? —proceed no further,

'Twas laurell'd Martial roaring, Murder!

VERSES

WRITTEN ON A WINDOW OF THE INN AT CARRON

WE cam na here to view your warks,

In hopes to be mair wise,

But only lest we gang to hell,

It may be nae surprise:

But when we tirled at your door,
Your porter dought na hear us;
Sae may, should we to hell's yetts come,
Your billy Satan sair us!

EPITAPH

ON A CELEBRATED RULING ELDER.

HERE souter **** in death does sleep;
To h-ll, if he's gane thither,

Satan, gie him thy gear to keep!

He'll haud it weel thegither.

ON A NOISY POLEMIC.

BELOW thir stanes lie Jamie's banes:
O Death! it's my opinion,

Thou ne'er took such a bleth'rin' b-tch
Into thy dark dominion!

ON WEE JOHNNY

Hic jacet wee Johnnie.

WHOE'ER thou art, O reader, know
That Death has murder'd Johnny!
An' here his body lies fu' low →
For saul, he ne'er had ony.

FOR G. H., ESQ.

THE poor man weeps here G―n sleeps,

-

Whom canting wretches blam'd:

But with such as he, where'er he be,

May I be sav'd or damn'd!