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When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong, Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, Those accents grateful to thy tongue, Th' adored Name,

I taught thee how to pour in song,

To soothe thy flame.

'I saw thy pulse's maddening play, Wild send thee pleasure's devious way, Misled by fancy's meteor ray,

By passion driven;

But yet the light that led astray

Was light from heaven.

'I taught thy manners-painting strains, The loves, the ways of simple swains,

Till now,

o'er all my wide domains

Thy fame extends;

And some, the pride of Coila's plains,

Become thy friends.

'Thou canst not learn, nor can I show, To paint with Thomson's landscape-glow; Or wake the bosom-melting throe,

With Shenstone's art: Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow Warm on the heart.

"Yet all beneath th' unrivall'd rose,

The lowly daisy sweetly blows;

Tho' large the forest's monarch throws

Yet green

His army shade,

the juicy hawthorn grows,
Adown the glade.

Then never murmur nor repine; Strive in thy humble sphere to shine; And trust me, not Potosi's mine,

Nor kings' regard,

Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,

A rustic Bard.

To give my counsels all in one, Thy tuneful flame still careful fan; Preserve the Dignity of Man,

With soul erect;

And trust, the Universal Plan

Will all protect.

And wear thou this'-she solemn said, And bound the Holly round my head: The polish'd leaves, and berries red,

Did rustling play;

And, like a passing thought, she fled

In light away.

ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID;
Or, The Rigidly Righteous.

My son, these maxims make a rule,
And lump them aye thegither;

The Rigid Righteous is a fool,

The Rigid Wise anither:

The cleanest corn that e'er was dight
May hae some pyles o' caff in;
So ne'er a fellow-creature slight

For random fits o' daffin.

Solomon.-Eccles. vii. 16.

O YE wha are sae guid yoursel,

Sae pious and sae holy,

Ye've nought to do but mark and tell

Your neebour's faults and folly!

Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,
Supply'd wi' store o' water,
The heapet happer's ebbing still,
And still the clap plays clatter.

Hear me, ye venerable core,

As counsel for poor mortals,
That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door,
For glaikit Folly's portals;

I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,
Would here propone defences,

Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes,
Their failings and mischances.

Ye see your state wi' their's compar'd,
And shudder at the niffer,

But cast a moment's fair regard,
What maks the mighty differ;
Discount what scant occasion gave
That purity ye pride in,

And (what's aft mair than a' the lave)
Your better art o' hiding.

Think, when your castigated pulse

Gies now and then a wallop,
What raging must his veins convulse,
That still eternal gallop:

Wi' wind and tide fair i'

your

tail,

Right on ye scud your sea-way;
But in the teeth o' baith to sail,
It maks an unco lee-way.

See social life and glee sit down,
All joyous and unthinking,

Till, quite transmugrify'd, they're grown
Debauchery and drinking:

O, would they stay to calculate

Th' eternal consequences;
Or your more dreaded hell to state,
Damnation of expenses!

Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,
Ty'd up in godly laces,
Before ye gie poor frailty names,
Suppose a change o' cases;
A dear lov'd lad, convenience snug,
A treacherous inclination-
But, let me whisper i' your lug,
Ye're aiblins nae temptation.

Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human:

One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving why they do it:
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us,

He knows each chord-its various tone,
Each spring-its various bias:

Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;

What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.

TAM SAMSON'S ELEGY 1.

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

HAS auld K********* seen the Deil?
Or great M' ******** thrawn his heel?
Or R ******* 3 again grown weel,

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To preach an' read? Na, waur than a'!' cries ilka chiel,

POPE.

'Tam Samson's dead!'

K ********* lang may grunt an' grane,
An' sigh, an' sab, an' greet her lane,
An' cleed her bairns, man, wife, an' wean,
In mourning weed;

To death, she's dearly paid the kane,

Tam Samson's dead!

The brethren of the mystic level

May hing their head in woefu' bevel,
While by their nose the tears will revel,
Like ony bead;

Death's gien the lodge an unco devel:

Tam Samson's dead!

When this worthy old sportsman went out last muirfowl season, he supposed it was to be, in Ossian's phrase, 'the last of his fields;' and expressed an ardent wish to die and be buried in the muirs. On this hint the author composed his elegy and epitaph.

2 A certain preacher, a great favourite with the million. Vide the Ordination, stanza II.

3 Another preacher, an equal favourite with the few, who was at that time ailing. For him, see also the Ordination,

stanza IX.

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