No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn, Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame; Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes!1 He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose. His heart by causeless wanton malice wrung, wear; Foiled, bleeding, tortured, in the unequal strife, 1 Alluding to the eminent anatomist, Professor Alexander Monro, of the Edinburgh University. So, by some hedge, the generous steed deceased, Conscious the bounteous meed they well de serve, They only wonder "some folks" do not starve. Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain; In equanimity they never dwell, By turns in soaring heaven or vaulted hell. I dread thee, Fate, relentless and severe, Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust; ADDRESS TO THE SHADE OF THOMSON, ON CROWNING HIS BUST AT EDNAM, ROXBURGHSHIRE, WITH BAYS. Written at the suggestion of the Earl of Buchan, for the inauguration of a temple built to Thomson on Ednam Hill. WHILE virgin Spring, by Eden's flood, Unfolds her tender mantle green, Or pranks the sod in frolic mood, While Summer with a matron grace Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace By Tweed erects his agèd head, While maniac Winter rages o'er The hills whence classic Yarrow flows, Rousing the turbid torrent's roar, Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows: So long, sweet Poet of the year! Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won While Scotia, with exulting tear, Proclaims that Thomson was her son.1 1 Burns, in looking into Collins for his verses to the mem ory of Thomson, had probably glanced at the same poet's exquisite Ode to Evening, for the three concluding verses are manifestly imitated in this Address: "While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, While Summer loves to sport "While sallow Autumn fills thy cup with leaves, And rudely rends thy robes: "So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, And love thy favorite name!" LOVELY DAVIES. TUNE- Miss Muir. Burns had become acquainted, probably at Friars' Carse, with a beautiful young Englishwoman, a relation of the Riddels, and also connected by the mar riage of a sister with the noble family of Kenmure in the neighboring stewartry. Deborah Davies — for this was her name- was of small stature, but exquisitely handsome, and she possessed more than an average share of mental graces. With his usual sensibility to female beauty, but especially that of a refined and educated woman, Burns became an idolater of Miss Davies, and the feelings which possessed him soon led to an effusion of both prose and verse. She was the subject of the two following songs. O HOW shall I, unskilfu', try The poet's occupation, 1"One day, while Burns was at Moffat"- thus writes Allan Cunningham-" the charming, lovely Davies rode past, accompanied by a lady tall and portly: on a friend asking the poet, why God made one lady so large, and Miss Davies so little, he replied in the words of the epigram: "Ask why God made the gem so small, And why so huge the granite? Because God meant mankind should set |