Awake at last th' unsparing power; With doubling speed and gathering force, AS A NEW-YEAR'S GIFT, JANUARY 1, 1787. AGAIN the silent wheels of time Their annual round have driven, And you, though scarce in maiden prime, No gifts have I from Indian coasts I send you more than India boasts In Edwin's simple tale. 1 Sister of Major Logan, to whom the poet had addressed an epistle on the 30th October of the past year. Our sex with guile and faithless love Is charged, perhaps, too true; BONNIE DOON.* This song referred to an unhappy love-story of which young Peggy K. was the heroine. See vol. i. p. 203. Another copy, considerably altered, is afterwards introduced. January, 1787. YE flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fair! How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu' o' care! Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird, That sings upon the bough; Thou minds me o' the happy days When my fause luve was true. Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird, For sae I sat, and sae I sang, And wistna o' my fate. knew not Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon, To see the woodbine twine, And sae did I o' mine. Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose And my fause luver staw the rose, THE GUDEWIFE OF WAUCHOPE-HOUSE TO BURNS. During the first blaze of Burns's reputation in Edinburgh, several rhyming epistles were addressed to him publicly and privately - generally of no other value than to show how immensely he had stepped beyond all common bounds of success in cultivating the rustic Muse. One, however, from a Mrs. Scott of Wauchope, in Roxburghshire, was neatly and effectively written, and to it Burns made a suitable reply. My cantie, witty, rhyming ploughman, I hafflins doubt it is na true, man, That ye between the stilts was bred, half plough-handles Wi' ploughmen schooled, wi' ploughmen fed; I doubt it sair, ye've drawn your knowledge Either frae grammar-school or college. Guid troth, your saul and body baith War better fed, I'd gie my aith, Than theirs who sup sour milk and parritch, And bummil through the single Carritch. Whaever heard the ploughman speak, Could tell gif Homer was a Greek? And then sae slee ye crack your jokes Our great men a' sae weel descrive, bungle Catechism make Ane maist wad swear ye dwalt amang them, Ye are a funny blade, I swear; And though the cauld I ill can bide, endure Yet twenty miles and mair I'd ride O'er moss and moor, and never grumble, Though my auld yad should gie a stumble, jade To crack a winter night wi' thee, sly resided And hear thy sangs and sonnets slee. checkered respectable Fra' south as weel as north, my lad, A' honest Scotsmen lo'e the maud. shepherd's plaid BURNS TO THE GUDEWIFE OF WAUCHOPE-HOUSE. I MIND it weel in early date, When I was beardless, young, and blate, bashful When first among the yellow corn A man I reckoned was, And wi' the lave ilk merry morn bout fatigued rest row merry nonsense E'en then, a wish, I mind its power The rough burr-thissle, spreading wide I turned the weeder-clips aside, barley |