I marked thy embryo tuneful flame,
Thy natal hour.

“With future hope, I oft would gaze,
Fond, on thy little early ways,
Thy rudely-caroled, chiming phrase,
In uncouth rhymes,

Fired at the simple, artless lays
Of other times.

"I saw thee seek the sounding shore,
Delighted with the dashing roar;
Or when the north his fleecy store

Drove through the sky,

I saw grim Nature's visage hoar

Struck thy young eye.

"Or when the deep green-mantled earth Warm cherished every floweret's birth, And joy and music pouring forth

In every grove,

I saw thee eye the general mirth

With boundless love.

"When ripened fields, and azure skies, Called forth the reaper's rustling noise, I saw thee leave their evening joys,

And lonely stalk,

To vent thy bosom's swelling rise
In pensive walk.

"When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong, Keen shivering shot thy nerves along,

Those accents, grateful to thy tongue,
Th' adored Name,

I taught thee how to pour in song,
To soothe thy flame.

"I saw thy pulse's maddening play, Wild send thee Pleasure's devious way, Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray,

By passion driven;

But yet the light that led astray
Was light from Heaven.

"I taught thy manners painting strains,
The loves, the wants of simple swains,
Till now, o'er all my wide domains
Thy fame extends ;

And some, the pride of Coila's plains,
Become thy friends.

"Thou canst not learn, nor can I shew, To paint with Thomson's landscape glow; Or wake the bosom-melting throe,

With Shenstone's art;

Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow
Warm on the heart.

"Yet, all beneath the unrivalled rose,
The lowly daisy sweetly blows;
Though large the forest's monarch throws
His army shade,

Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows

Adown the glade.

"Then never murmur nor repine;
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine;
And, trust me, not Potosi's mine,
Nor king's regard,

Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,
A rustic bard.

"To give my counsels all in one — Thy tuneful flame still careful fan; Preserve the dignity of man,

With soul erect;

And trust, the universal plan

Will all protect.

"And wear thou this," she solemn said,
And bound the holly round my head:
The polished leaves, and berries red,
Did rustling play;

And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.

A WINTER NIGHT.

"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of the pitiless storm!
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides.
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these?"-SHAKSPEARE.

WE

HEN biting Boreas, fell and doure, Sharp shivers through the leafless bower; When Phoebus gies a short-lived glower

Far south the lift,

Dim-darkening through the flaky shower,
Or whirling drift:

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi' snawy wreaths up-choked,
Wild-eddying swirl,

Or, through the mining outlet bocked,
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 through the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle,
Beneath a scaur.

Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing,.
That, in the merry months o' spring,
Delighted me to hear thee sing,

What comes o' thee?

Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing,
And close thy e'e?

Even you, on murdering errands toiled,
Lone from your savage homes exiled,
The blood-stained roost, and sheep-cot spoiled,
My heart forgets,
While pitiless the tempest wild

Sore on you beats.

Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign,
Dark muffled, viewed the dreary plain;

Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train,
Rose in my soul,

When on my ear this plaintive strain

66

Slow, solemn, stole : —

Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost !
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!
Not all your rage, as now united, shews
More hard unkindness, unrelenting,
Vengeful malice unrepenting,

Than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows!

"See stern Oppression's iron grip, Or mad Ambition's gory hand,

'Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip, Wo, Want, and Murder o'er a land!

E'en in the peaceful rural vale,

Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale,

How pampered Luxury, Flattery by her side, The parasite empoisoning her ear,

With all the servile wretches in the rear,
Looks o'er proud Property, extended wide;
And eyes the simple rustic hind,

Whose toil upholds the glittering show,
A creature of another kind,

Some coarser substance, unrefined,

Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile below.

"Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe,

With lordly Honour's lofty brow,

The powers you proudly own?