The lightnings flash from pole to pole; Near and more near the thunders roll; When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees,

Kirk-Alloway seemed in a bleeze; Through ilka bore the beams were glancing,

And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquebae we'll face the devil!

The swats sae reamed in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he cared na deils a bodle;
But Maggie stood right sair astonished,
Till, by the heel and hand admonished,
She ventured forward on the light,
And wow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance!
Nae cotillion, brent-new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels
Put life and mettle in their heels.
At winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick in shape o' beast:
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screwed his pipes, and gart them skirl
Till roof an' rafters a' did dirl.
Coffins stood round like open presses,
That shawed the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantrip sleight,
Each in his cauld hand held a light,
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table

A murderer's bains in gibbet-airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' blude red rusted;
Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted;
A garter, which a babe had strangled;
A knife a father's throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o' life bereft,-
The grey hairs yet stak to the heft;
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu',
Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'.

As Tammie glow'red, amazed and glori

ous,

The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;
The piper loud and louder blew;
The dancers quick and quicker flew;
They reeled, they set, they crossed, they
cleek it

Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies to the wark,
And linket at it in her sark!

But Tam kenned what was what fu' brawlie.

There was ae winsome wench and walie,
That night enlisted in the core,
(Lang after kenned on Carrick shore;
For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perished mony a bonnie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the country-side in fear);
Her cutty sark o' Paisley harn,
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude tho' sorely scanty,

It was her best, and she was vauntie-
Ah! little kenned thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie
Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches),
Wad ever grace a dance of witches!

But here my Muse her wing maun cow'r; Sic flights are far beyond her pow'r ; To sing how Nannie lap and flang (A souple jade she was, and strang), And how Tam stood, like ane bewitched, And thought his very een enriched; Even Satan glow'red and fidged fu' fain, And hotched and blew wi' might and main ; Till first ae caper, syne anither, Tam tint his reason a'thegither, And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!" And in an instant a' was dark: And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, When out the hellish legion sallied.

As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke When plundering herds assail their byke; As open pussie's mortal foes, When, pop! she starts before their nose; As eager runs the market crowd, When "Catch the thief'" resounds aloud; So Maggie runs, the witches follow, Wi' mony an eldritch screech and hollow.

Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou 'lt get thy
fairin'!

In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin'!
Kate soon will be a waefu' woman.
Now do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane o' the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake;
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam with furious ettle,
But little wist she Maggie's mettle-
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain grey tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother's son, tak' heed:
Whene'er to drink you are inclined,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think, ye may buy the joys ow'r dear-
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare.

MY SPOUSE NANCY.

Tune-"To Janet."

HUSBAND, husband, cease your strife,
Nor longer idly rave, sir;
Though I am your wedded wife,
Yet I am not your slave, sir.

"One of two must still obey, Nancy, Nancy;

Is it man, or woman, say,
My spouse Nancy?"

If 'tis still the lordly word,

Service and obedience; I'll desert my sovereign lord, And so good bye, allegiance!

"Sad will I be, so bereft,
Nancy, Nancy;

Yet I'll try to make a shift,
My spouse Nancy."

My poor heart then break it must,
My last hour I'm near it :
When you lay me in the dust,

Think, think how you will bear it.

For me, I love the honest heart and warm
Of monarch who can amble round his farm,
Or, when the toil of state no more annoys,
In chimney-corner seek domestic joys;
I love a prince will bid the bottle pass,
Exchanging with his subjects glance and
glass;

In fitting time can, gayest of the gay,
Keep up the jest and mingle in the lay:
Such monarchs best our free-born humours
suit,

But despots must be stately, stern, and mute.

Timaun, Serendib had in swaye's Serendib? may some critic

Good lack! mine honest friend, consult the chart,

Scare not my Pegasus before I start!
If Rennell has it not, you'll find, mayhap,
The isle laid down in Captain Sinbad's

map,

Famed mariner! whose merciless narrations

Drove every friend and kinsman out of patience,

Till, fain to find a guest who thought them shorter,

He deigned to tell them over to a porter: The last edition see, by Long. and Co., Rees, Hurst, and Orme, our fathers in the Row.

Serendib found, deem not my tale a fiction: This Sultan, whether lacking contradiction

(A sort of stimulant which hath its uses, To raise the spirits and reform the juices, -Sovereign specific for all sorts of cures In my wife's practice, and perhaps in yours), The Sultan lacking this same wholesome bitter,

Or cordial smooth for prince's palate fitter-
Or if some Mollah had hag-rid his dreams
With Degial, Ginnistan, and such wild
themes

Belonging to the Mollah's subtle craft,
I wot not-but the Sultan never laughed,
Scarce ate or drank, and took a melancholy,
That scorned all remedy-profane or holy;
In his long list of melancholies, mad,
Or mazed, or dumb, hath Burton none so
bad.*

Physicians soon arrived, sage, ware, and tried,

As e'er scrawled jargon in a darkened

room:

With heedful glance the Sultan's tongue they eyed,

Peeped in his bath, and God knows where beside,

And then in solemn accent spoke their doom.

"His Majesty is very far from well." Then each to work with his specific fell: The Hakim Ibrahim instanter brought His unguent Mahazzim al Zerdukkaut, While Roompot, a practioner more wily. Relied on his Munaskif al fillfily.

• See Burton, "Anatomy of Melancholy."

Then was the council called-by their advice

(They deemed the matter ticklish all, and nice,

And sought to shift it off from their own shoulders),

Tartars and couriers in all speed were sent To call a sort of Eastern Parliament

Of feudatory chieftains and freeholdersSuch have the Persians at this very day, My gallant Malcolm calls them couroultai; I'm not prepared to show in this slight song

That to Serendib the same forms belong,E'en let the learned go search, and tell me if I'm wrong.

The Omrahs, each with hand on scymitar, Gave, like Sempronius, still their voice for

And next came forth the reverend Convocation,

Bald heads, white beards, and many a turban green,

Imaum and Mollah there of every station, Santon, Fakir, and Calendar were seen. Their votes were various-some advised a mosque

With fitting revenues should be erected, With seemly gardens and with gay kiosque, To recreate a band of priests selected; Others opined that through the realms a dole

Be made to holy men, whose prayers might profit

The Sultan's weal in body and in soul.

But their long-headed chief, the Sheik Ul-Sofit,

More closely touched the point:-"Thy studious mood,"

Quoth he, "O prince! hath thickened all thy blood,

And dulled thy brain with labour beyond

It works upon the fibres and the pores And thus, insensibly, our health restores,

And it must help us here.-Thou must endure

The ill, my son, or travel for the cure. Search land and sea, and get, where'er you can,

The inmost vesture of a happy man,

I mean his SHIRT, my son; which, taken

warm

And fresh from off his back, shall chase your harm,

Bid every current of your veins rejoice, And your dull heart leap light as shepherd-boy's."

Such was the counsel from his mother

came;

I know not if she had some under-game, As doctors have, who bid their patients

roam

And live abroad, when sure to die at home; Or if she thought that, somehow or another, Queen-Regent sounded better than QueenMother;

But, says the chronicle (who will go look it)

That such was her advice:-the Sultan took it.

All are on board-the Sultan and his train,

In gilded galley prompt to plough the main. The old Rais* was the first who questioned, "Whither?"

They paused.-"Arabia," thought the pensive prince,

"Was called The Happy many ages since.

For Mokha, Rais."-And they came
safely thither.

But not in Araby, with all her balm,
Not where Judea weeps beneath her palm,
Not in rich Egypt, not in Nubian waste,
Could there the step of happiness be traced.
One Copt alone professed to have seen her
smile,

When Bruce his goblet filled at infant
Nile;

She blessed the dauntless traveller as he quaffed,

But vanished from him with the ended

At least, they have as fair a cause as any

can,

They drink good wine and keep no Ram.

azan.

Then northward, ho!"-The vessel cuts the sea,

And fair Italia lies upon her lee.

But fair Italia, she who once unfurled Her eagle banners o'er a conquered world, Long from her throne of domination tumbled,

Lay, by her quondam vassals sorely humbled;

The Pope himself looked pensive, pale, and lean,

And was not half the man he once had been.

"While these the priest and those the noble fleeces,

Our poor old boot," they said, "is torn to pieces.

Its tops the vengeful claws of Austria feel, And the great Devil is rending toe and

heel.

Only the glory of his house had failed him;

Besides, some tumours on his noddle biding,

Gave indication of a recent hiding. Our prince, though Sultans of such things are heedless,

Thought it a thing indelicate and needless To ask, if at that moment he was happy. And Monsieur, seeing that he was comme il faut, a

Loud voice mustered up, for "Vive le Roi!"

Then whispered, "'Ave you any news of Nappy?"

The Sultan answered him with a cross

question,