Address to Edinburgh.

With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears,
I view that noble, stately dome,
Where Scotia's kings of other years,

Famed heroes! had their royal home: Alas! how changed the times to come! Their royal name low in the dust! Their hapless race wild-wandering roam! Though rigid law cries out, 'Twas just.

Wild beats my heart to trace your steps,
Whose ancestors, in days of yore,
Through hostile ranks and ruin'd gaps
Old Scotia's bloody lion bore:
Even I who sing in rustic lore,

Haply, my sires have left their shed,
And faced grim Danger's loudest roar,
Bold-following where your fathers led!

Edina! Scotia's darling seat!

All hail thy palaces and towers, Where once beneath a monarch's feet Sat Legislation's sovereign powers! From marking wildly-scatter'd flowers, As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, And singing, lone, the lingering hours, I shelter in thy honour'd shade.

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 redbreast 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 steel'd,

And train'd 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 trace,
Skill'd in the secret, to bestow with grace ;