Now, by the Pow'rs o' verse and prose!
Thou art a dainty chield, O Grose!
Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose,
They sair misca' thee;
I'd take the rascal by the nose,
Wad say 'Shame fa' thee! '
HAIL, Poesie! thou Nymph reserv'd!
In chase o' thee what crowds hae swerv'd
Frae common sense, or sunk enerv'd
'Mang heaps o' clavers;
And oh o'er aft thy joes hae starv'd,
'Mid a' thy favours!
Say, Lassie, why, thy train amang,
While loud the trump's heroic clang,
And sock or buskin skelp alang
To death or marriage,
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang
But wi' miscarriage?
In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives;
Eschylus' pen Will Shakespeare drives;
Wee Pope, the knurlin', till him rives
Horatian fame ;
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives
Even Sappho's flame.
But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?
They're no herds' ballats, Maro's catches;
Squire Pope but busks his skinklin' patches
O' heathen tatters:
I pass by hunders, nameless wretches,
That ape their betters.
In this braw age o' wit and lear,
Will nane the Shepherd's whistle mair
Blaw sweetly in its native air
And wi' the far-fam'd Grecian share
A rival place?
Yes! there is ane-a Scottish callan !
There's ane; come forrit, honest Allan!
Thou need na jouk behint the hallan,
A chiel sae clever;
The teeth o' Time may gnaw Tamtallan,
But thou 's for ever!
Thou paints auld Nature to the nines,
In thy sweet Caledonian lines ;
Nae gowden stream thro' myrtles twines,
Where Philomel,
While nightly breezes sweep the vines,
Her griefs will tell!
In gowany glens thy burnie strays,
Where bonnie lasses bleach their claes;
Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,
Wi' hawthorns gray,
Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays
At close o' day.
Thy rural loves are nature's sel';
Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell;
Nae snap conceits; but that sweet spell
O' witchin' love-
That charm that can the strongest quell,
The sternest move.
THE HUMBLE PETITION OF BRUAR WATER
TO THE NOBLE DUKE OF ATHOLE.
My Lord, I know your noble ear
Woe ne'er assails in vain ;
Embolden'd thus, I beg you'll hear
Your humble slave complain,
How saucy Phoebus' scorching beams,
In flaming summer-pride,
Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams,
And drink my crystal tide.
The lightly-jumping glowrin' trouts,
That thro' my waters play,
If, in their random wanton spouts,
They near the margin stray;
If, hapless chance! they linger lang,
I'm scorching up so shallow,
They're left the whitening stanes amang,
In gasping death to wallow.
Last day I grat wi' spite and teen,
As poet Burns came by,
That to a bard I should be seen
Wi' half my channel dry:
A panegyric rhyme, I ween,
Even as I was, he shor'd me;
But had I in my glory been,
He, kneeling, wad ador'd me.
Here, foaming down the shelvy rocks,
In twisting strength I rin;
There high my boiling torrent smokes,
Wild-roaring o'er a linn:
Enjoying large each spring and well
As Nature gave them me,
I am, altho' I say 't mysel,
Worth gaun a mile to see.
Would then my noble master please
To grant my highest wishes,
He'll shade my banks wi' tow'ring trees,
And bonnie spreading bushes.
Delighted doubly then, my Lord,
You'll wander on my banks,
And listen mony a grateful bird
Return you tuneful thanks.
The sober laverock, warbling wild,
Shall to the skies aspire;
The gowdspink, Music's gayest child,
Shall sweetly join the choir :
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear,
The mavis mild and mellow;
The robin pensive Autumn cheer,
In all her locks of yellow.
This, too, a covert shall ensure,
To shield them from the storm;
And coward maukin sleep secure,
Low in her grassy form:
Here shall the shepherd make his seat,
To weave his crown of flow'rs;
Or find a sheltering safe retreat
From prone-descending show'rs.
And here, by sweet endearing stealth,
Shall meet the loving pair,
Despising worlds with all their wealth
As empty idle care:
The flow'rs shall vie in all their charms
The hour of heav'n to grace,
And birks extend their fragrant arms,
To screen the dear embrace.
Here haply too, at vernal dawn,
Some musing bard may stray,
And eye the smoking dewy lawn,
And misty mountain gray;
Or, by the reaper's nightly beam,
Mild-chequering thro' the trees,
Rave to my darkly dashing stream,
Hoarse-swelling on the breeze.
Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,
My lowly banks o'erspread,
And view, deep-bending in the pool,
Their shadows' wat'ry bed!
Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest
My craggy cliffs adorn;
And, for the little songster's nest,
The close embow'ring thorn.
So may Old Scotia's darling hope,
Your little angel band,
Spring, like their fathers, up to prop
Their honour'd native land!
So may thro' Albion's farthest ken,
To social-flowing glasses
The grace be-'Athole's honest men,
And Athole's bonnie lasses !'
FAIR fa' your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill;
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
While thro' your pores the dews distil
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