As Youth and Love with sprightly dance, May delude the thoughtless pair; As thy day grows warm and high, Dost thou spurn the humble vale? Life's proud summits wouldst thou scale? Check thy climbing step, elate, Evils lurk in felon wait: Dangers, eagle-pinioned, bold, Soar around each cliffy hold, While cheerful peace, with linnet song, Chants the lowly dells among. As the shades of evening close, On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought Did thy fortune ebb or flow? 1 Thus resigned and quiet, creep Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake, Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide! I Variation Say, man's true genuine estimate Peer or peasant?-no such thing! This extended copy of the lines for Friars' Carse Hermit ELEGY ON THE YEAR 1788. Jan. 1, 1789. FOR Lords or Kings I dinna mourn, A towmont, sirs, is gane to wreck! twelvemonth The Spanish empire's tint a head,1 lost fight The tither's something dour o' treadin', unsparing But better stuff ne'er clawed a midden. dunghil age was produced in December. We agree with Allan Cunningham in seeing in this second effort a proof of the comparative labor which Burns encountered in attempting to compose in pure English. The restricted religious views of the poet will be remarked. 1 Charles III., king of Spain, died on the 13th of Decem ber, 1788. 2 A generic familiar name for a dog in Scotland. Ye ministers, come mount the pu'pit, . -raucous money coin Ye ken yoursel's for little feck! consideration Observe the very nowt and sheep, cattle How dowf and dowie now they creep: dull — sad Nay, even the yirth itsel' does cry, For Embro' wells are grutten dry.1 Edinburgh - wept Oh Eighty-nine, thou's but a bairn, But, like himsel', a full free agent. 1 The Edinburgh newspapers of this period contain many references to a scarcity of water, in consequence of severe frost. 2 The king having shown symptoms of unsound mind in November, the public was at this time agitated with discus sions as to the choice of a regent. A SKETCH. Burns meditated a laborious poem, to be entitled The Poet's Progress, probably of an autobiographical nature. He submitted to Mr. Stewart various short pieces designed to form part of this poem, but none have been preserved except the following.1 A LITTLE, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight, Still making work his selfish craft must mend. 1 It is not unlikely that the lines on William Smellie, al teady introduced, were intended to form a part of The Poet's Progress. 2 It is painful to come to the conclusion, from a remark and quotation in a subsequent letter, that this selfish, superficial wight was- Creech the same "Willie" whom Burns de |