He glows with all the fpirit of the Bard,

Fame, honeft fame, his great, his dear re

ward.

Still, if fome Patron's gen'rous care he trace,

Skill'd in the fecret, to bestow with grace;
B********* befriends his humble

When

name,

And hands the ruftic stranger up to fame,

With heartfelt throbes his grateful bofom

fwells,

The godlike blifs, to give, alone excels!

Twas when the ftacks get on their winter-hap, And thack and rape fecure the toil-won crap; Potatoe bings are fnugged up frae skaith

Of coming Winter's biting, frofty breath;

VOL, I.

H

The

The thundering guns are heard on ev'ry fide, The wounded coveys, reeling, fcatter wide; The feather'd field-mates, bound by Nature's tie,

Sires, mother's, children, in one carnage lie: (What warm, poetic heart but inly bleeds, And execrates man's favage, ruthlefs deeds!)

Nac

Nae mair the flow'r in field or meadow fprings; Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings, Except perhaps the Robin's whistling glee, ; Proud o' the height o' fome bit half-lang tree: The hoary morns precede the funny days, Mild, calm, ferene, wide-fpreads the noontide blaze,

While thick the goffamour waves wanton in

the rays.

'Twas in that feason when a fimple Bard,
Unknown and poor, fimplicity's reward,
Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr,
By whim infpir'd, or haply prest wi' care,
He left his bed, and took his wayward rout,

And down by Simpson's

wheel'd the left

about:

H 2

* A noted tavern at the Auld Brig end.

(Whether

(Whether impell'd by all-directing Fate,

To witnefs what I after fhall narrate;

Or whether rapt in meditation high,

He wander'd out, he knew not where, nor why) The drowsy Dungeon-clock + had number'd

two,

And Wallace' Tow'r had fworn the fact was

true:

The tide-fwoln Firth, with fullen-founding

roar,

Through the ftill night dash'd hoarfe along

the fhore:

All elfe was hush'd as Nature's clofed e'e;

The filent moon fhone high o'er tow'r and

tree:

The two steeples.

The

The chilly froft, beneath the filver-beam,

Crept gently-crufting, o'er the glittering

ftream.

WHEN, lo! on either hand the lift'ning Bard,
The clanging fugh o' whistling wings is heard
Two dusky forms dart thro' the midnight air,
Swift as the Gos* drives on the wheeling

hare;

Ane on th' Auld Brig his airy fhape uprears;

The ither flutters o'er the rifing piers:

Our warlock Rhymer inftantly defcry'd

The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr prefide. (That Bards are fecond-fighted is nae joke,

And ken the lingo of the fp'ritual folk;