10 Oh! scenes in strong remembrance set!
Scenes never, never to return!
Scenes, if in stupor I forget,

Again I feel, again I burn!
From every joy and pleasure torn,
Life's weary vale I'll wander through;
And hopeless, comfortless, I'll mourn
A faithless woman's broken vow.

DESPONDENCY: AN ODE.

1 OPPRESS'D with grief, oppress'd with care, A burden more than I can bear,

I sit me down and sigh:

O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,

To wretches such as I!

Dim backward as I cast my view,
What sick'ning scenes appear!

What sorrows yet may pierce me through,

Too justly I may fear!

Still caring, despairing,

Must be my bitter doom;

My woes here shall close ne'er,
But with the closing tomb!

2 Happy, ye sons of busy life,

Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard!

Even when the wishèd end's denied,
Yet while the busy means are plied,
They bring their own reward:

E

Whilst I, a hope-abandon'd wight,
Unfitted with an aim,
Meet every sad returning night
And joyless morn the same;
You, bustling, and justling,
Forget each grief and pain;
I, listless, yet restless,
Find every prospect vain,

3 How blest the Solitary's lot,
Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot,
Within his humble cell,

The cavern wild with tangling roots,
Sits o'er his newly gather'd fruits,
Beside his crystal well!

Or, haply, to his evening thought,
By unfrequented stream,

The

ways

of men are distant brought,

A faint collected dream;

While praising, and raising

His thoughts to heaven on high, As wand'ring, meand'ring,

He views the solemn sky.

4 Than I, no lonely hermit placed Where never human footstep traced, Less fit to play the part;

The lucky moment to improve,

And just to stop, and just to move,

With self-respecting art:

But ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys,

Which I too keenly taste,

The Solitary can despise,
Can want, and yet be blest!

He needs not, he heeds not,
Or human love or hate,
Whilst I here must cry here
At perfidy ingrate!

5 Oh enviable, early days,

When dancing thoughtless Pleasure's maze,
To Care, to Guilt unknown!
How ill-exchanged for riper times,
To feel the follies, or the crimes,
Of others, or my own!
Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish!
The losses, the crosses,

That active man engage!
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim declining age!

WINTER, A DIRGE.

1 THE wintry west extends his blast, And hail and rain does blaw ;

Or, the stormy north sends driving forth

The blinding sleet and snaw:

While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,

And roars frae bank to brae;

And bird and beast in covert rest,

And pass the heartless day.

2 The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,' 1
The joyless winter-day,

Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:

The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,

My griefs it seems to join ;
The leafless trees my fancy please,

Their fate resembles mine!

3 Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme These woes of mine fulfil,

Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,

Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want (oh, do Thou grant

This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign.

THE COTTAR'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

INSCRIBED TO R. AIKEN,2 ESQ.

'Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short but simple annals of the poor.'

GRAY.

1 My loved, my honour'd, much respected friend! No mercenary bard his homage pays;

With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end';

My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise :

O'ercast: Dr Young.-B.-Aiken: a writer in Ayr and great friend of Burns.

To

you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,

The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;

What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween!

2 November chill blaws loud wi' angry sough;
The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn cottar frae his labour goes,

This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward
bend.

3 At length his lonely cot appears in view,

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree:

The expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher through 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,

And makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil.

4 Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, amang 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, Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown,