But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same,
Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor,

To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
The wily Mother sees the conscious flame
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek,
With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;
Weel pleas'd the Mother hears, it's nae wild, worthless rake

Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben;
A strappan youth; he taks the Mother's eye;
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en;

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,
But blate, an laithfu', scarce can weel behave;
The Mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy

What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave; Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.

O happy love! where love like this is found!
O heart-felt raptures!-bliss beyond compare!
I've paced much this weary, mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare→→
"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 ev'ning 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 perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth!
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd?

Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,

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 of 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 prest, 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, with patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride;
His bonnet rev'rently 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;

And "Let us worship GOD!" he says, with solemn air.

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 heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:
Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame;

The tickl'd ear no heart-felt 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 Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd 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.

Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart!

The pow'r, incens'd, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But, haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul; And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol.

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way:
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
Their Parent-pair their secret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That HE, who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry 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 lov'd at home, rever'd 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 heav'nly 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 refin'd!

O Scotia; my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil,

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! And, O! 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-lov'd Isle.

H

O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide

That stream'd through Wallace's undaunted heart: Who dar'd 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!)
O never, never, Scotia's realm desert;

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

Read over these quotations and judge for yourselves. In the gay, the sad, the empassioned, the tender, and the domestic, you can see his extraordinary power. There are other styles in which he also excelled. But with this we conclude. Burns, then, has lived his seven-andthirty years, and is in his honoured grave. No great space of time is seven-and-thirty years in which to have built such a pyramid to his own fame as advancing time shall never destroy. Measure it by the ordinary duration of life, it is short; measure it by what he might have achieved, if he had run the usual course allotted to men, and he seems cut off before he had well entered upon the course. The greatest works of almost all great men have been produced after the age of thirty-seven. If Shakspeare, Milton, Bacon, Newton, had died at that age, the world would have lost the masterpieces of their minds. Some poets who rose to fame had not even found out their powers at that time of life. Scott had not written a novel; Cowper had not