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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 Apr.

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;

The Brigs of Ayr.

When Ballantyne befriends his humble name,
And hands the rustic stranger up to fame,
With heart-felt throes his grateful bosom swells,
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.

'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;

[graphic]

The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils,
Unnumber'd buds' and flowers' delicious spoils
Seal'd up with frugal care in massive waxen piles,
Are doom'd by man, that tyrant o'er the weak,
The death o' devils, smoor'd wi' brimstone reek:
The thundering guns are heard on every side;
The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide;
The feather'd field-mates, bound by Nature's tie,
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie:

(What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds,

And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds!)
Nae mair the flower in field or meadow springs,
Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings,
Except, perhaps, the robin's whistling glee,
Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree:
The hoary morns precede the sunny days,

Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noontide blaze,
While thick the gossamer waves wanton in the rays.

'Twas in that season, when a simple bard,
Unknown and poor, simplicity's reward,
Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr,
By whim inspired, or haply prest wi' care,

He left his bed, and took his wayward route,
And down by Simpson's wheel'd the left about:
(Whether impell'd by all-directing Fate,

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 drowsy Dungeon clock had number'd two,
And Wallace Tower had sworn the fact was true:
The tide-swoln Firth, wi' sullen sounding roar,
Through the still night dash'd hoarse along the shore.

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,
The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard;
Two dusky forms dart through the midnight air,
Swift as the gos drives on the wheeling hare;
Ane on the Auld Brig his airy shape uprears,
The ither flutters o'er the rising piers:

Our warlock rhymer instantly descried

The sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside.
(That bards are second-sighted is nae joke,
And ken the lingo of the spiritual folk;

Fays, spunkies, kelpies, a', they can explain them,
And even the very deils they brawly ken them.)
Auld Brig appear'd o' ancient Pictish race,
The very wrinkles Gothic in his face:

He seem'd as he wi' Time had warstled lang,
Yet, teughly doure, he bade an unco bang.
New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat,

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;--

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