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When down it rolls, and at the bottom lies,
Sunk, lost, degraded, never more to rise!
Far off the glorious height from whence it fell,
With all things base and infamous to dwell.

CRABBE.

FROM "THE COTTAR'S SATURDAY NIGHT."

Ar length his lonely cot appears in view,

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th' expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher thro’, To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily,

His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,

An' makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.

Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, among the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neibour town;
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,

In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Come hame perhaps to show her braw new gown, Or dèposite her sair-won penny-fee,

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

Wi' joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet,
An' each for other's welfare kindly speirs:
The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed, fleet;
Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears:

The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forwards points the view.

The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears,

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

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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 rev'rently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glideHe 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 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 ha'e 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,

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

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.

*

*

Then homeward all take off their several way;

The youngling 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. BURNS.

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH.

WEE modest crimson-tipped flower,
Thou'st met me in an evil hour;

For I maun crush amang the stour
Thy slender stem;

To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonnie gem.

Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie Lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!
Wi' speckled breast,

When upward springing, blythe to greet
The purplin east.

Cauld blew the bitter biting north

Upon thy early, humble birth;

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,

Scarce reared above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield!
But thou, beneath the random bield

O'clod or stane,

Adorns't the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snowy 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 betrayed,
And guileless trust;

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

Such is the fate of simple bard,

On life's rough ocean luckless starred !
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 and cunning driven
To misery's brink,

Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven,
He, ruined, sink!

Even 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 crushed beneath the furrow's weight

Shall be thy doom!

BURNS.

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