I doubt he's but a gray-nick quill,
And that ye'll fin'.

Oh a' ye flocks o'er a' the hills,
By mosses, meadows, moors, and fells,
Come, join your counsel and your skills
To cowe the lairds,

And get the brutes the powers themsels
To choose their herds.

Then Orthodoxy yet may prance,
And Learning in a woody dance,
And that fell cur ca'd Common Sense,
That bites sae sair,

Be banished o'er the sea to France:
Let him bark there.

Then Shaw's and D'rymple's eloquence,
M'Gill's close nervous excellence,
M'Quhae's pathetic manly sense,
And guid M'Math,

Wi' Smith, wha through the heart can glance,
May a' pack aff.

TO WILLIAM S[IMPSON],

OCHILTREE.

I GAT your letter, winsome Willie;
Wi' gratefu' heart I thank you brawly;

Though I maun say 't, I wad be silly,
And unco vain,

Should I believe, my coaxin' billie,
Your flatterin' strain.

But I'se believe ye kindly meant it,
I sud be laith to think ye hinted
Ironic satire, sidelins sklented
On my poor Musie;

Though in sic phrasin' terms ye 've penned it
I scarce excuse ye.

My senses wad be in a creel,
Should I but dare a hope to speel
Wi' Allan or wi' Gilbertfield,

The braes o' fame;

Or Fergusson, the writer chiel,

A deathless name.

(Oh, Fergusson! thy glorious parts
Ill suited law's dry musty arts!
My curse upon your whunstane hearts,
Ye E'nbrugh gentry;

The tithe o' what ye waste at cartes
Wad stowed his pantry !)

Yet when a tale comes i' my head,
Or lasses gie my heart a screed,

As whiles they're like to be my dead,
(Oh sad disease!)

I kittle up my rustic reed;

It gies me ease.

Auld Coila now may fidge fu' fain,
She's gotten poets o' her ain,
Chiels wha their chanters winna hain,
But tune their lays,

Till echoes a' resound again

Her weel-sung praise.

Nae poet thought her worth his while,
To set her name in measured style;
She lay like some unkenn'd-of isle
Beside New Holland,

Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil
Besouth Magellan.

Ramsay and famous Fergusson
Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon;
Yarrow and Tweed, to monie a tune,
Owre Scotland rings;

While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon,
Naebody sings.

Th' Illissus, Tiber, Thames, and Seine,
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu' line;
But, Willie, set your fit to mine,

And cock your crest,

We'll gar our streams and burnies shine Up wi' the best!

We'll sing auld Coila's plains and fells, Her moors red-brown wi' heather-bells, Her banks and braes, her dens and dells, Where glorious Wallace

Aft bure the gree, as story tells,
Frae southron billies.

At Wallace' name what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood!
Oft have our fearless fathers strode
By Wallace' side,

Still pressing onward, red-wat shod,
Or glorious died!

O sweet are Coila's haughs and woods
When lintwhites chant amang the buds,
And jinkin' hares, in amorous whids,
Their loves enjoy,

While through the braes the cushat croods
With wailfu' cry!

Even winter bleak has charms to me, When winds rave through the naked tree; Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree

Are hoary gray;

Or blinding drifts wild furious flee,
Darkening the day!

O Nature! a' thy shows and forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms!
Whether the summer kindly warms,
Wi' life and light,

Or winter howls, in gusty storms,
The lang, dark night!

The Muse, nae poet ever fand her,
Till by himsel' he learned to wander,

Adown some trotting burn's meander,
And no think lang;

O sweet, to stray and pensive ponder
A heartfelt sang!

The war'ly race may drudge and drive,
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch and strive;
Let me fair Nature's face descrive,
And I wi' pleasure,

Shall let the busy grumbling hive
Bum owre their treasure.

Fareweel, “my rhyme-composing brither!"
We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither:
Now let us lay our heads thegither,
In love fraternal ;
May Envy wallop in a tether,

Black fiend infernal!

While Highlandmen hate tolls and taxes ; While moorlan' herds like guid fat braxies, While terra firma on her axis

Diurnal turns,

Count on a friend, in faith and practice,
In ROBERT BURNS.

POSTSCRIPT.

My memory's no worth a preen,
I had amaist forgotten clean,

Ye bade me write you what they mean
By this New Light,