For well I saw in halls and towers
That lust and pride,
The arch-fiend's dearest, darkest powers,
In state preside.
I saw mankind with vice incrusted;
I saw that honour's sword was rusted;
That few for aught but folly lusted;
That he was still deceived who trusted
To love or friend;
And hither came, with men disgusted,
My life to end.
In this lone cave, in garments lowly,
Alike a foe to noisy folly,
And brow-bent gloomy melancholy,
I wear away
My life, and in my office holy
Consume the day.
This rock my shield, when storms are blowing,
The limpid streamlet yonder flowing
Supplying drink, the earth bestowing
My simple food;
But few enjoy the calm I know in
This desert wood.
Content and comfort bless me more in
This grot, than e'er I felt before in
A palace-and with thoughts still soaring
To God on high,
Each night and morn with voice imploring,
This wish I sigh:
"Let me, O Lord! from life retire,
Unknown each guilty worldly fire,
Remorse's throb, or loose desire;
And when I die,
Let me in this belief expire
Stranger, if full of youth and riot,
And yet no grief has marred thy quiet,
Thou haply throw'st a scornful eye at
The hermit's prayer-
But if thou hast good cause to sigh at
Thy fault or care;
If thou hast known false love's vexation,
Or hast been exiled from thy nation,
Or guilt affrights thy contemplation,
And makes thee pine,
Oh! how must thou lament thy station,
And envy mine!
"TWAS where the birch and sounding thong are plied,
The noisy domicile of pedant pride;
Where Ignorance her darkening vapour throws,
And Cruelty directs the thickening blows;
Upon a time, Sir Abece the great,
In all his pedagogic powers elate,
His awful chair of state resolves to mount,
And call the trembling vowels to account.
First entered A, a grave, broad, solemn wight,
But, ah! deformed, dishonest to the sight!
His twisted head looked backward on his way,
And flagrant from the scourge he grunted, ai!
Reluctant, E stalked in; with piteous race
The justling tears ran down his honest face!
That name, that well-worn name, and all his own,
Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne !
The pedant stifles keen the Roman sound
Not all his mongrel diphthongs can compound;
And next the title following close behind,
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assigned.
The cobwebbed Gothic dome resounded, Y!
In sullen vengeance, I, disdained reply:
The pedant swung his felon cudgel round,
And knocked the groaning vowel to the ground!
In rueful apprehension entered O,
The wailing minstrel of despairing wo;
Th' Inquisitor of Spain the most expert,
Might there have learnt new mysteries of his art;
So grim, deformed, with horrors entering, U
His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew!
As trembling U stood staring all aghast,
The pedant in his left hand clutched him fast,
In helpless infants' tears he dipped his right,
Baptised him eu, and kicked him from his sight.
ON PASTORAL POETRY.
HAIL Poesie! thou Nymph reserved!
In chase o' thee, what crowds hac swerved
Frae common-sense, or sunk ennerved
'Mang heaps o' clavers;
And och ower aft thy joes hae starved,
Mid a' thy favours
Say, Lassie, why thy train amang,
While loud, the trump's heroic clang,
babblings
too oft, lovers
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 Shakspeare drives;
Wee Pope, the knurlin, 'till him rives
Horatian fame;
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives
Ev'n Sappho's flame.
But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?
They're no herd's 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-famed Grecian, share
A rival place?
Yes! there is ane; a Scottish callan-
There's ain; come forrit, honest Allan !
Thou need na jouk behint the hallan,
A chiel sae clever;
The teeth o' Time may gnaw Tantallan,
But thou's for ever!
Thou paints auld Nature to the nines,
In thy sweet Caledonian lines;
Nae gowden stream through myrtles twines,
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 grey,
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.
who ballads dresses, spark
one, lad forward skulk, door
HUMID seal of soft affections,
Tend'rest pledge of future bliss,
Dearest tie of young connections,
Love's first snow-drop, virgin kiss.
Speaking silence, dumb confession,
Passion's birth, and infant's play,
Dove-like fondness, chaste concession,
Glowing dawn of brighter day.
Sorrowing joy, adieu's last action,
When ling'ring lips no more must join;
What words can ever speak affection,
So thrilling and sincere as thine!
WRITTEN WHEN THE POET WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE SCOTLAND.
O'ER the mist-shrouded cliffs of the lone mountain straying,
Where the wild winds of winter incessantly rave,
What woes wring my heart while intently surveying
The storm's gloomy path on the breast of the wave.
Ye foam-crested billows, allow me to wail,
Ere ye toss me afar from my lov'd native shore;
Where the flower which bloom'd sweetest in Coila's green vale,
The pride of my bosom, my Mary's no more.
No more by the banks of the streamlet we'll wander,
And smile at the moon's rimpled face in the wave;
No more shall my arms cling with fondness around her,
For the dew-drops of morning fall cold on her grave.
No more shall the soft thrill of love warm my breast,
I haste with the storm to a far distant shore;
Where unknown, unlamented, my ashes shall rest,
And joy shall revisit my bosom no more.
AN EXTEMPORE EFFUSION,
ON BEING APPOINTED TO THE EXCISE.
SEARCHING auld wives' barrels,
Och, hon! the day!
That clarty barm should stain my laurels;
But-what'll ye say!
These muvin' things ca'd wives and weans,
Wad muve the very hearts o' stanes!
THOU bed, in which I first began
To be that various creature-Man!
And when again the Fates decree,
The place where I must cease to be ;-
When sickness comes, to whom I fly,
To soothe my pain, or close mine eye;-
When cares surround me, where I weep,
Or loose them all in balmy sleep ;-
When sore with labour, whom I court,
And to thy downy breast resort-
The centre thou-where grief and pain,
Disease and rest, alternate reign.
Oh, since within thy little space,
So many various scenes take place;
Lessons as useful shalt thou teach,
As sages dictate-churchmen preach;
And man, convinced by thee alone,
This great important truth shall own:
"That thin partitions do divide
The bounds where good and ill reside;
That nought is perfect here below;
But BLISS still bordering upon WOE.'
SENT TO A GENTLEMAN WHOM HE HAD OFFENDED.
THE friend whom wild from wisdom's way,
The fumes of wine infuriate send
(Not moony madness more astray)
Who but deplores that hapless friend?
Mine was th' insensate frenzied part,
Ah, why should I such scenes outlive!
Scenes so abhorrent to my heart!
'Tis thine to pity and forgive.
THE RUINED MAID'S LAMENT.
OH, meikle do I rue, fause love,
Oh sairly do 1 rue,
That e'er I heard your flattering tongue,
That e'er your face I knew.
Oh, I hae tint my rosy cheeks,
Likewise my waist sae sma';
And I hae lost my lightsome heart,
That little wist a fa'.
Now I maun thole the scornfu' sneer
O' mony a saucy quean;
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