Listening the doors and winnocks rattle,
I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle.
O' winter war,

And through the drift, deep-lairing sprattle,
Beneath a scaur.

Ik happing bird, wee, helpless thing,
That, in the merry months o' spring,
Delighted me to hear thee sing,

What comes o' thee?

Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing, And close thy ee?

Even you, on murdering errands toil'd,

Lone from your savage homes exiled,
The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cot spoil'd,
My heart forgets,

While pitiless the tempest wild

Sore on you beats.

Now Phobe, in her midnight reign,
Dark muffled, view'd the dreary plain;
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train,
Rose in my soul,

When on my ear this plaintive strain,

Slow, solemn, stole :

A Winter Night.

"Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost!
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!

Not all your rage, as now united, shows
More hard unkindness, unrelenting,

Vengeful malice unrepenting,

Than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows!

"See stern Oppression's iron grip,

Or mad Ambition's gory hand,

Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip,
Woe, Want, and Murder o'er a land!
Even in the peaceful rural vale,

Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale,
How pamper'd Luxury, Flattery by her side,
The parasite empoisoning her ear,
With all the servile wretches in the rear,
Looks o'er proud Property, extended wide;
And eyes the simple rustic hind,

Whose toil upholds the glittering show,

A creature of another kind,

Some coarser substance unrefined,

Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below.

'Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe,

With lordly Honour's lofty brow,

The powers you proudly own?
Is there, beneath Love's noble name,
Can harbour dark the selfish aim,

To bless himself alone!
Mark maiden innocence a prey

To love-pretending snares,
This boasted Honour turns away,
Shunning soft Pity's rising sway,

Regardless of the tears and unavailing prayers!

Perhaps this hour, in misery's squalid nest,

She strains your infant to her joyless breast, And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast!

"O ye who, sunk in beds of down,

Feel not a want but what yourselves create,
Think for a moment on his wretched fate

Whom friends and fortune quite disown!
Ill satisfied keen nature's clamorous call,

Stretch'd on his straw he lays himself to sleep, While through the ragged roof and chinky wall, Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap! Think on the dungeon's grim confine,

Where Guilt and poor Misfortune pine!

Guilt, erring man, relenting view!
But shall thy legal rage pursue

The wretch, already crushèd low
By cruel Fortune's undeservèd blow?

a Winter Dight.

Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;

A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!"

I heard na mair, for chanticleer
Shook off the pouthery snaw,
And hail'd the morning with a cheer,
A cottage-rousing craw.

But deep this truth impress'd my mind

Through all His works abroad,

The heart benevolent and kind

To a Mountain Daisy,

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH IN APRIL 1786.

WEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flower,

Thou's met me in an evil hour;

For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:

To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonny gem.

Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet,
The bonny lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,

Wi' speckled breast,

When upward springing, blithe, to greet,

The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north

Upon thy early, humble birth;

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth

Amid the storm,

Scarce rear'd above the parent earth

Thy tender form.