THE old cock'd hat, the brown surtout the same;
His grisly beard just bristling in its might
('Twas four long nights and days to shaving-night);
His uncomb'd, hoary locks, wild-staring, thatch'd
A head for thought profound and clear unmatch'd;
Yet, tho' his caustic wit was biting rude,
His heart was warm, benevolent, and good.
CRAIGDARROCH, fam'd for speaking art
And every virtue of the heart,
Stops short, nor can a word impart
To end his sentence,
When mem'ry strikes him like a dart
With auld acquaintance.
Black James-whase wit was never laith,
But, like a sword had tint the sheath,
Ay ready for the work o' death-
And strains wi' suffocating breath
His grief to hide.
Even Philosophic Smellie tries
To choak the stream that floods his eyes:
So Moses wi' a hazel-rice
Came o'er the stane;
But, tho' it cost him speaking twice,
It gush'd amain.
Go to your marble graffs, ye great,
In a' the tinkler-trash of state!
But by thy honest turf I'll wait,
Thou man of worth,
And weep the ae best fallow's fate
E'er lay in earth!
MILD Zephyrs waft thee to life's farthest shore,
Nor think of me and my distresses more!
Falsehood accurst! No! Still I beg a place,
Still near thy heart some little, little trace!
For that dear trace the world I would resign:
O, let me live, and die, and think it mine!
By all I lov'd, neglected, and forgot,
No friendly face e'er lights my squalid cot.
Shunn'd, hated, wrong'd, unpitied, unredrest
The mock'd quotation of the scorner's jest ;
Ev'n the poor support of my wretched life,
Snatched by the violence of legal strife;
Oft grateful for my very daily bread,
To those my family's once large bounty fed;
A welcome inmate at their homely fare,
My griefs, my woes, my sighs, my tears they share :
Their vulgar souls unlike the souls refined,
The fashion'd marble of the polish'd mind.
'I burn, I burn, as when thro' ripen'd corn
By driving winds the crackling flames are borne.'
Now, maddening-wild, I curse that fatal night,
Now bless the hour that charm'd my guilty sight.
In vain the Laws their feeble force oppose :
Chain'd at his feet, they groan Love's vanquish'd
foes.
In vain Religion meets my shrinking eye:
I dare not combat, but I turn and fly.
Conscience in vain upbraids th' unhallow'd fire.
Love grasps his scorpions-stifled they expire.
Reason drops headlong from his sacred throne.
Your dear idea reigns, and reigns alone;
Each thought intoxicated homage yields,
And riots wanton in forbidden fields.
By all on high adoring mortals know;
By all the conscious villain fears below;
By what, alas! much more my soul alarms—
My doubtful hopes once more to fill thy arms-
Ev'n shouldst thou, false, forswear the guilty tie,
Thine and thine only I must live and die!
In vain would Prudence with decorous sneer
Point out a censuring world, and bid me fear:
Above that world on wings of love I rise,
I know its worst, and can that worst despise.
'Wrong'd, injur'd, shunn'd, unpitied, unredrest,
The mock'd quotation of the scorner's jest,'
Let Prudence' direst bodements on me fall,
Clarinda, rich reward! o'erpays them all.
THE cares o' Love are sweeter far
Than onie other pleasure;
And if sae dear its sorrows are,
Enjoyment, what a treasure!
I fear to try, I dare na try
A passion sae ensnaring;
For light's her heart and blythe's her song
That for nae man is caring.
He clench'd his pamphlets in his fist,
He quoted and he hinted,
Till in a declamation-mist
His argument, he tint it:
He gaped for 't, he grapèd for 't,
He fand it was awa, man;
But what his common sense came short,
He eked out wi' law, man.
Collected, Harry stood awee,
Then open'd out his arm, man;
His lordship sat wi' ruefu' e'e,
And ey'd the gathering storm, man ;
Like wind-driv'n hail it did assail,
Or torrents owre a linn, man ;
The Bench sae wise lift up their eyes,
Hauf-wauken'd wi' the din, man.
|