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.
'The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"
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!
'Thou Pow'r 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 thon grant
This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign.'
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.
INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKIN, 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.
My lov'd, 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
To you I sing, in simple Scotish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feeling's strong, the guileless ways;
What Aikin in a cottage would have been;
Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there I
ween!
November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;
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 cotter 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 muir, his course does hameward
bend.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, todlin, stacher through
To meet their Dad wi' flighterin noise and glee:
His wee-bit ingle blinkin bonnily,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty Wife's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil.
Belyve the elder bairns come drappin in,
At service out, amang the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neebor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, Love sparklin in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown,
Or deposit her sair-won penny-fee,
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
Wi' joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet,
And each for other's weelfare kindly spiers,
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd fleet;
Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears;
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view: The mother wi' her needle and her sheers,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new;
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.
Their Master's an' their Mistress's command,
The younkers a' are warned to obey:
An' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand,
An ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play;
An' Oh! be sure to fear the LORD alway!
An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night!
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray,
Implore his counsel and assisting might;
They never sought in vain that sought the LORD
aright!"
But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same,
Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor,
To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
The wily mother sees the conscious flame
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; With heart-struck anxious care enquires his name, While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak:
Weel pleas'd, the mother hears, its nae wild worth. less rake.
Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben;
A strappen youth; he takes the mother's eye; Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en;
The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy
What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.
O happy love! where love like this is found!
O heart-felt-raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I've paced much this weary mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare
'If Heaven a draught of heav'nly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evenin gale.'
Is there, in human form, that bears a heart—
A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth!
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,
Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild?
But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The healsome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food:
The soupe the only hawkie does afford,
That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood:
The dame brings forth in complimental mood,
To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell,
An aft he's prest, an',aft he ca's it guid;
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell,
How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.
The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet reverently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And Let us worship GoD!' he says, with solemn air,
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name:
Or noble Elgin beets the heav'n-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:
Jompar'd with these, Italian trills are tame,
The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.
The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of GoD on high;
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny:
Or how the royal hard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry:
Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heav'n the second name,
Ilad not on earth whereon to lay his head;
How his first followers and servants sped,
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land;
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
An heard great Babylon's doom pronounc'd by Heav'n's command.
Then kneeling down to HEAVEN'S ETERNAL KING,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays;
Hope' springs exulting on triumphant wing,'*
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart!
The Power, incens'd, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ;
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