Address to Edinburgh. With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears, 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, Haply, my sires have left their shed, 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 Apr. INSCRIBED TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ., AYR. THE simple bard, rough at the rustic plough, 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? With all the venal soul of dedicating prose? The Brigs of Ayr. When Ballantyne befriends his humble name, 'Twas when the stacks get on their winter-hap, And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap; Potato-bings are snuggèd up frae skaith O' coming Winter's biting, frosty breath; The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils, (What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds, And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds!) Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noontide blaze, 'Twas in that season, when a simple bard, He left his bed, and took his wayward route, To witness what I after shall narrate; Or penitential pangs for former sins, Led him to rove by quondam Merran Dins ; Or whether, rapt in meditation high, He wander'd out, he knew not where nor why.) The Brigs of Ayr. All else was hush'd as Nature's closed ee: 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, Our warlock rhymer instantly descried The sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside. Fays, spunkies, kelpies, a', they can explain them, He seem'd as he wi' Time had warstled lang, 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;-- |