""Twas but yestreen, nae farther gaeni, "Guid-een," quo' I; "Friend! hae ye been I threw a noble throw at ane; mawin, Wi' less, I'm sure, I've hundreds slain; But deil-ma-care, It just play'd dirl on the bane, But did nae mair. "Hornbook was by, wi' ready art, And had sae fortify'd the part, An epidemical fever was then raging in that country. †This gentleman, Dr. Hornbook, is professionally, a brother of the Sovereign Order of the Feruia; but, by intuition and inspiration, is at once an Apothecary Surgeon, and Physician. Buchan's Domestic Medicine. The soaring lark, the perching red-breast | (Whether impell'd by all-directing Fate, shrill, Or deep-ton'd, plovers, gray, wild-whistling o'er the hill; Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed, He glows with all the spirit of the Bard, To witness what I after shall narrate; The drowsy Dungeon-clock* had number'd two, And Wallace Tower had sworn the fact was true. The tide-swoln Firth with sullen sounding roar, Through the still night dash'd hoarse along the shore : All else was hush'd as Nature's closed e'e; The silent moon shone high o'er tower and tree: The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam, Crept, gently crusting, o'er the glittering stream. When, lo! on either hand the hist'ning Bard, The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard ; Two dusky forms dart thro' the midnight air, Swift as the Gost drives on the wheeling hare; Ane on th' Auld Brig his airy shape uprears, (That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke, And ev'n the very deils they brawly ken them.) Auld Brig appear'd of ancient Pictish race, He seem'd as he wi' Time had warstl'd lang, Wi' virls and whirlygigums at the head. search, Spying the time-worn flaws in ev'ry arch; AULD BRIG. I doubt na, frien', ye'll think ye're nae sheep shank, Ance ye were streekit o'er frae bank to bank, But gin ye be a brig as auld as me, Tho' faith that day, I doubt, ye'll never see The two steeples. †The gos-hawk, or falcon. |