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"If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale,

"Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,

In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk white thorn that scents the evening gale."

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart-
A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth!
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled?
Is there no pity, no relenting truth,

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild?

But now the supper crowns their simple board, The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food: The soupe their only hawkie does afford,

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood : The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell, An' aft he's press'd, an' aft he ca's it guid;

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell

How 'twas a towmond auld sin' lint was i' the bell.

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride:

His bonnet reverently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; [air. And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn They chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name:

Or noble Elgin beets the heavenward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays :
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;

The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie

Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;

Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head:
How his first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand;

And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by
Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays: Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing," That thus they all shall meet in future days: There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear;

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

VOL. II. 1

Compared with this, how poor religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display, to congregations wide,

Devotion's every grace except the heart!
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,

[soul; May hear, well pleased, the language of the And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enrol.

Then homeward all take off their several way;
The yougling cottagers retire to rest :
The parent pair their secret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best,

For them and for their little ones provide ; But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,

That makes her loved at home, revered abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, "An honest man's the noblest work of God:" And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road,

The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined! Oh Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may the hardy sons of rustic toil [content! Be bless'd with health, and peace, and sweet And oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,

A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.

Oh Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide

[heart;

That stream'd through Wallace's undaunted Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die the second glorious part (The patriot's God peculiarly thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!), Oh never, never Scotia's realm desert:

But still the patriot and the patriot bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.

WEE, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou'st met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem;

To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem.

Alas! it's not thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!
Wi' spreckled breast,

When upward-springing, blithe to greet
The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth

Amid the storm,

Scarce rear'd above the parent earth

Thy tender form.

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield;
But thou beneath the random bield

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lift'st thy unassuming head

In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid,
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betray'd,

And guileless trust,

Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid
Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!
Unskilful he to note the card

Of prudent lore,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er!

Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driv'n

To mis'ry's brink,

Till, wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heaven,
He, ruin'd, sink!

E'en thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,

Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight
Shall be thy doom!

TO J. s****

SOME rhyme a neebor's name to lash;
Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu' cash:

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