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Where the mossy riv'let strays,
Far from human haunts and ways,
All on Nature you depend,

And life's poor season peaceful spend.
Or, if man's superior might,

Dare invade your native right,
On the lofty ether borne,

Man with all his powers you scorn ;
Swiftly seek, on clanging wings,
Other lakes and other springs;

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Scorn at least to be his slave.

And the foe you cannot brave,

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WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL

OVER THE CHIMNEY-PIECE IN THE PARLOUR OF THE INN AT KENMORE, TAYMOUTH.

ADMIRING Nature in her wildest grace,

These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;
O'er many a winding dale and painful steep,
The abodes of covied grouse and timid sheep,
My savage journey, curious, I pursue,
Till famed Breadalbane opens to my view.
The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
The woods, wild-scatter'd, clothe their ample sides;
The outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the hills.
The eye with wonder and amazement fills;
The Tay meandering sweet in infant pride,
The palace rising on its verdant side;

The lawns wood-fringed in Nature's native taste;
The hillocks dropt in Nature's careless haste;

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The arches striding o'er the new-born stream;
The village, glittering in the noontide beam-

Poetic ardours in my bosom swell,
Lone wandering by the hermit's mossy cell:
The sweeping theatre of hanging woods;
The incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods-

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20.

Here Poesy might wake her heaven-taught lyre,
And look through nature with creative fire;
Here, to the wrongs of Fate half reconciled,
Misfortune's lighten'd steps might wander wild;
And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds,
Find balm to soothe her bitter rankling wounds;
Here heart-struck Grief might heavenward stretch her scan,
And injured Worth forget and pardon man.

WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL,

STANDING BY THE FALL OF FYERS,1 NEAR LOCH-NESS.

AMONG the heathy hills and ragged woods
The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods;

Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds,

Where, through a shapeless breach, his stream resounds.
As high in air the bursting torrents flow,

As deep recoiling surges foam below;

Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends,
And viewless Echo's ear, astonish'd, rends.

Dim-seen, through rising mists, and ceaseless showers,
The hoary cavern, wide-surrounding, lowers.

เ Fyers' more frequently now printed Foyers.

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Still through the gap the struggling river toils,
And still below, the horrid cauldron boils-

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ON THE BIRTH OF A POSTHUMOUS CHILD,1

BORN IN PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF FAMILY DISTRESS.

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1 SWEET flow'ret, pledge o' meikle love,
And ward o' mony a prayer,
What heart o' stane wad thou na move,
Sae helpless, sweet, and fair!

2 November hirples o'er the lea,
Chill, on thy lovely form;

And gane, alas! the sheltering tree,
Should shield thee frae the storm.

3 May He who gives the rain to pour,
And wings the blast to blaw,
Protect thee frae the driving shower,
The bitter frost and snaw!

4 May He, the friend of woe and want,
Who heals life's various stounds,
Protect and guard the mother-plant,
And heal her cruel wounds!

5 But late she flourish'd, rooted fast,
Fair on the summer morn:

Now feebly bends she in the blast,
Unshelter'd and forlorn:

Posthumous child:' grand-child of Mrs Dunlop, whose daughter had married M. Henri, a Frenchman. This son, after many vicissitudes, succeeded to his paternal estates. The father had died ere the birth.

6 Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem
Unscathed by ruffian hand!

And from thee many a parent stem
Arise to deck our land!

THE WHISTLE, A BALLAD.

As the authentic prose history of the whistle is curious, I shall here give it. In the train of Anne of Denmark, when she came to Scotland with our James the Sixth, there came over also a Danish gentleman of gigantic stature and great prowess, and a matchless champion of Bacchus. He had a little ebony whistle, which at the commencement of the orgies he laid on the table, and whoever was last able to blow it, every body else being disabled by the potency of the bottle, was to carry off the whistle as a trophy of victory. The Dane produced credentials of his victories, without a single defeat, at the courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Moscow, Warsaw, and several of the petty courts in Germany; and challenged the Scots bacchanalians to the alternative of trying his prowess, or else of acknowledging their inferiority. After many overthrows on the part of the Scots, the Dane was encountered by Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton, ancestor of the present worthy baronet of that name: who, after three days and three nights' hard contest, left the Scandinavian under the table, 'And blew on the whistle his requiem shrill.'

Sir Walter, son to Sir Robert before-mentioned, afterwards lost the whistle to Walter Riddel of Glenriddel, who had married a sister of Sir Walter's. On Friday, the 16th of October 1790, at Friars-Carse, the whistle was once more contended for, as related in the ballad, by the present Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton; Robert Riddel, Esq. of Glenriddel, lineal descendant and representative of Walter Riddel, who won the whistle, and in whose family it had continued; and Alexander Ferguson, Esq. of Craigdarroch, likewise descended of the great Sir Robert; which last gentleman carried off the hard-won honours of the field.-B.

1 I SING of a whistle,1 a whistle of worth,

I sing of a whistle, the pride of the North,

Was brought to the court of our good Scottish king,
And long with this whistle all Scotland shall ring.

Whistle: Burns was present at this bacchanalian encounter, and wrote the poem in the room.

2 Old Loda,1 still rueing the arm of Fingal,

The god of the bottle sends down from his hall—
"This whistle's your challenge-to Scotland get o'er,
And drink them to hell, Sir, or ne'er see me more!'

3 Old poets have sung, and old chronicles tell,
What champions ventured, what champions fell;
The son of great Loda was conqueror still,
And blew on the whistle his requiem shrill.

4 Till Robert, the lord of the Cairn and the Skarr,2
Unmatch'd at the bottle, unconquer'd in war,
He drank his poor godship as deep as the sea-
No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he.

5 Thus Robert, victorious, the trophy has gain'd,

Which now in his house has for ages remain'd;
Till three noble chieftains, and all of his blood,
The jovial contest again have renew’d.

6 Three joyous good fellows, with hearts clear of flaw :
Craigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth, and law;
And trusty Glenriddel, so skill'd in old coins;
And gallant Sir Robert, deep read in old wines.

7 Craigdarroch began, with a tongue smooth as oil,
Desiring Glenriddel to yield up the spoil;

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Or else he would muster the heads of the clan,
And once more, in claret, try which was the man.

8 By the gods of the ancients,' Glenriddel replies,
Before I surrender so glorious a prize,

I'll conjure the ghost of the great Rorie More,3
And bumper his horn with him twenty times o'er.'"

Old Loda:' See Ossian's Caric-thura. — B. — ' Cairn and Skarr : ' tributaries to the Nith. Rorie More:' See Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides.'-B.

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