VERSICLES ON SIGN-POSTS

1

He looked

Just as your sign-post Lions do,

With aspect fierce and quite as harmless too.

2

(PATIENT STUPIDITY)

So heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks, Dull on the sign-post stands the stupid ox.

3

His face with smile eternal drest
Just like the landlord to his guest,
High as they hang with creaking din
To index out the Country Inn.

4

A HEAD, pure, sinless quite of brain and soul,
The very image of a barber's poll:
Just shews a human face, and wears a wig,
And looks, when well friseur'd, amazing big.

ON MISS JEAN SCOTT

O, HAD each Scot of ancient times
Been, Jeanie Scott, as thou art,
The bravest heart on English ground
Had yielded like a coward.

ON CAPTAIN FRANCIS GROSE

THE Devil got notice that Grose was a-dying,
So whip! at the summons, old Satan came flying;
But when he approach'd where poor Francis lay
moaning,

And saw each bed-post with its burthen a-groaning,
Astonish'd, confounded, cries Satan :-'By God,
I'd want him ere take such a damnable load!'

ON BEING APPOINTED TO

AN EXCISE DIVISION

SEARCHING auld wives' barrels,

Ochon, the day

That clarty barm should stain my laurels ! dirty

But what'll ye say?

These movin' things ca'd wives an' weans children

ON MISS DAVIES

Ask why God made the gem so small,
And why so huge the granite?
Because God meant mankind should set
That higher value on it.

ON A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY SEAT

WE grant they're thine, those beauties all,

So lovely in our eye:

Keep them, thou eunuch, Cardoness,

For others to enjoy.

THE TYRANT WIFE

CURS'D be the man, the poorest wretch in life,
The crouching vassal to the tyrant wife!
Who has no will but by her high permission;
Who has not sixpence but in her possession;
Who must to her his dear friend's secret tell;
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell!
Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
I'd break her spirit, or I'd break her heart:
I'd charm her with the magic of a switch,
I'd kiss her maids, and kick the perverse bitch.

AT BROWNHILL INN

AT Brownhill we always get dainty good cheer
And plenty of bacon each day in the year;

We've a' thing that's nice, and mostly in season:
But why always bacon?-come, tell me the reason?

every

THE TOADEATER

OF Lordly acquaintance you boast,

And the Dukes that you

dined with yestreen,

Yet an insect's an insect at most,

Tho' it crawl on the curl of a Queen!

AT THE GLOBE TAVERN, DUMFRIES

1

THE greybeard, old Wisdom, may boast of his treasures,

Give me with gay Folly to live!

I grant him his calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures, But Folly has raptures to give.

2

(1)

I MURDER hate by field or flood,

Tho' Glory's name may screen us.
In wars at hame I'll spend my blood-
Life-giving wars of Venus.

The deities that I adore

Are Social Peace and Plenty :
I'm better pleas'd to make one more
Than be the death of twenty.

(11)

I would not die like Socrates,

For all the fuss of Plato;
Nor would I with Leonidas,

Nor yet would I with Cato;
The zealots of the Church and State
Shall ne'er my mortal foes be;
But let me have bold Zimri's fate
Within the arms of Cozbi.