Which tenfold force gives Nature's law,
That man was made to mourn.
"Look not alone on youthful prime,
Or manhood's active might;
Man then is useful to his kind,
Supported is his right;
But see him on the edge of life,
With cares and sorrows worn,
Then age and want, oh! ill-match'd pair!
Show man was made to mourn.
"A few seem favorites of Fate,
In pleasure's lap carest;
Yet, think not all the rich and great
Are likewise truly blest.
But, oh! what crowds in every land,
Are wretched and forlorn!
Thro' weary life this lesson learn,
That man was made to mourn.
"Many and sharp the numerous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves,
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heaven-erected face
The smiles of love adorn,
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
"See yonder poor, o'erlabor'd wight,
So abject, mean, and vile,
Who begs a brother of the earth
To give him leave to toil;1
And see his lordly fellow-worm
The poor petition spurn,
Unmindful, though a weeping wife
And helpless offspring mourn.
"If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave--
By Nature's law design'd-
1 The contrast between his own worldly circumstances and intellectua. rank, was never perhaps more bitterly nor more loftily expressed by our Poet, than in these four lines, and the first half of the following stanza.
Why was an independent wish
E'er planted in my mind?
If not, why am I subject to
His cruelty or scorn?
Or why has man the will and power
To make his fellow mourn?
"Yet let not this too much, my son,
Disturb thy youthful breast:
This partial view of human kind
Is surely not the last!
The poor, oppresséd, honest man
Had never, sure, been born,
Had there not been some recompense
To comfort those that mourn!
"O Death! the poor man's dearest friend!
The kindest and the best!
Welcome the hour my agéd limbs
Are laid with thee at rest!
The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow,
From pomp and pleasure torn;
But, oh! a blest relief to those
That weary-laden mourn!"1
DESPONDENCY.-AN ODE.
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 sickening scenes appear!
What sorrows yet may pierce me thro',
Too justly I may fear!
Still caring, despairing,
Must be my bitter doom;
1 In "Man was made to Mourn," Burns appears to have taken many hints from an ancient ballad, entitled "The Life and Age of Man."
My woes here shall close ne'er,
But with the closing tomb!
Happy, ye sons of busy life,
Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard!
Even when the wished end's denied,
Yet while the busy means are plied,
They bring their own reward:
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.
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 wandering, meandering,
He views the solemn sky.
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!
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!
ALL hail! inexorable lord!
At whose destruction-breathing word
The mightiest empires fall!
Thy cruel, woe-delighted train,
The ministers of grief and pain,
A sullen welcome, all!
With stern-resolved despairing eye,
I see each aiméd dart;
For one has cut my dearest tie,
And quivers in my heart.
Then lowering and pouring,
The storm no more I dread;
Tho' thickening and blackening,
Round my devoted head.
And thou, grim Power, by life abhorr'd,
While life a pleasure can afford,
Oh! hear a wretch's prayer!
No more I shrink, appall'd, afraid,
I court, I beg thy friendly aid,
To close this scene of care!
When shall my soul, in silent peace,
Resign life's joyless day;
My weary heart its throbbing cease,
Cold mouldering in the clay?
No fear more, no tear more,
To stain my lifeless face;
Enclasped and grasped
Within thy cold embrace!
A WINTER NIGHT.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm!
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these!-Shakspeare.
WHEN biting Boreas, fell and doure,1
Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bower;
When Phoebus gies a short-lived glower2
Far south the lift,3
Dim darkening thro' the flaky shower
Or whirlin' drift:
Ae1 night the storm the steeples rock'd,
Poor labor sweet in sleep was lock'd,
While burns, in snawy wreaths up-chock'd,
Wild-eddying swirl,"
Or thro' the mining outlet bock'd,"
Down headlong hurl.
Listening the doors and winnocks rattle,
I thought me on the ourie' cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
O' winter war,
And thro' the drift, deep-lairing1o sprattle
Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing, That, in the merry months o' spring, · Delighted me to hear thee sing,
Sullen.-2 Glimmer.-3 The sky.-4 One.-5 Rivulets.-6 Curve.Gushed.- Windows.- Shivering.-10 Wading and sinking in snow, or mud.- A cliff, or precipice.-12 Each hopping.
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