2

Squire Pope but busks his skinklin1 patches
O' heathen tatters:

I pass, by hunders, nameless wretches,

That ape their betters.

In this braw age o' wit and lear,

Will nane the Shepherd's whistle mair
Blaw sweetly in its native air

And rural grace;

And wi' the far-famed Grecian share
A rival place?

Yes! there is ane; a Scottish callan-
There's ane; come forrit, honest Allan !*
Thou need na jouk2 behint the hallan,
A chiel sae clever;

The teeth o' time may gnaw Tantallan,3
But thou's for ever!

Thou paints auld nature to the nines,
In thy sweet Caledonian lines;

Nae gowden stream through myrtles twines,
Where Philomel,

While nightly breezes sweep the vines,
Her griefs will tell!

In gowany glens thy burnie strays,
Where bonny lasses bleach their claes;
Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,

Wi' hawthorns gray,

Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays
At close o' day.

Thy rural loves are nature's sel;
Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell;
Nae snap conceits-but that sweet spell
O' witchin' love;

That charm that can the strongest quell,
The sternest move.

SONNET

ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT RIDDEL, ESQ., OF GLEN Riddel.

No more, ye warblers of the wood, no more!
Nor pour your descant, grating, on my soul:
Thou young-eyed Spring, gay in thy verdant stole -
More welcome were to me grim Winter's wildest roar.

2 Hide.

3 Tantallon Castle.

1 Thin or gauzy.

* Allan Ramsay.

1 Man.

My blessings aye attend the chiel1
Wha pitied Gallia's slaves, man,
And staw a branch, spite o' the deil,
Frae yont3 the western waves, man."
Fair Virtue water'd it wi' care,

And now she sees wi' pride, man,
How weel it buds and blossoms there,
Its branches spreading wide, man.

But vicious folk aye hate to see

*

The works o' Virtue thrive, man;
The courtly vermin's bann'd the tree,
And grat to see it thrive, man;
King Louis thought to cut it down,
When it was unco5 sma', man;
For this the watchman crack'd his crown,
Cut aff his head and a', man.

A wicked crew syne,6 on a time,
Did tak a solemn aith, man,

It ne'er should flourish to its prime,
I wat' they pledged their faith, man ;
Awa' they gaed,8 wi' mock parade,
Like beagles hunting game, man,
But soon grew weary o' the trade,
And wish'd they'd been at hame, man.

For Freedom, standing by the tree,
Her sons did loudly ca', man ;

She sang a sang o' liberty,

Which pleased them ane and a', man.

By her inspired, the new-born race
Soon drew the avenging steel, man;
The hirelings ran-her foes gied9 chase,
And bang'd the despot weel, man.

Let Britain boast her hardy oak,

Her poplar and her pine, man,

Auld Britain ance could crack her joke,
And o'er her neighbours shine, man.
But seek the forest round and round,
And soon 'twill be agreed, man,
That sic a tree cannot be found
'Twixt London and the Tweed, man.

Without this tree, alake, this life

Is but a vale o' woe, man;

2 Stole.

3 From beyond.

* The allusion here is to the then recently acquired freedom of North America.

A scene o' sorrow mix'd wi' strife,
Nae real joys we know, man.
We labour soon, we labour late,
To feed the titled knave, man;
And a' the comfort we're to get
Is that ayont the grave, man.

Wi' plenty o' sic trees, I trow,

The warld would live in peace, man;
The sword would help to mak a plough,
The din o' war wad cease, man.
Like brethren in a common cause,
We'd on each other smile, man;
And equal rights and equal laws
Wad gladden every isle, man.

Wae worth the loon1 wha wadna eat
Sic halesome dainty cheer, man;
I'd gie my shoon frae aff my feet,
To taste sic fruit, I swear, man.
Syne let us pray, auld England may
Sure plant this far-famed tree, man ;
And blithe we'll sing, and hail the day
That gives us liberty, man.

TO CHLORIS.

THE Chloris of the following lines, and the heroine of no less than eleven of the poet's songs, was a Mrs. Whelpdale, daughter of Mr. William Lorimer, farmer of Kemmis Hall, near Ellisland. She was exceedingly beautiful. At the time Burns became acquainted with her she was living apart from her husband, a reckless spendthrift, with whom she had contracted a runaway marriage, at Gretna Green, because her friends did not approve of the match.

After the death of her husband, whom she never saw but twice or thrice after they separated, her father died, in such worldly circumstances as left her no choice but to take service as a governess.

The poor, friendless, and unprotected creature, fell from the paths of virtue, and the latter years of her life were miserable in the extreme. Shortly before her death a benevolent gentleman, to whom she told her story, protected her from the most material pangs which her wretched condition entailed. Years of sin and suffering had laid the seeds of consumption, of which she died in Middleton's Entry, Potterrow, Edinburgh, in 1831.

'TIS Friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend,
Nor thou the gift refuse,

Nor with unwilling ear attend

The moralising Muse.

Since thou, in all thy youth and charms,

Must bid the world adieu

(A world 'gainst peace in constant arms)

To join the friendly few.

1 Fellow.

Since thy gay morn of life o'ercast,
Chill came the tempest's lower;
(And ne'er misfortune's eastern blast
Did nip a fairer flower.)

Since life's gay scenes must charm no more,
Still much is left behind;

Still nobler wealth hast thou in store-
The comforts of the mind!

Thine is the self-approving glow,
On conscious honour's part:
And, dearest gift of Heaven below,
Thine friendship's truest heart.

The joys refined of sense and taste,
With every Muse to rove:
And doubly were the poet blest,
These joys could he improve.

VERSES

ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WOODS NEAR DRUMLANRIG.

THE Duke of Queensberry, a nobleman held in little esteem by the world, and in less by the poet, had (we quote from Mr. Robert Chambers) "stripped his domains of Drumlanrig in Dumfriesshire, and Neidpath in Peeblesshire, of all the wood fit for being cut, in order to enrich the Countess of Yarmouth, whom he supposed to be his daughter, and to whom, by a singular piece of good fortune on her part, Mr. George Selwyn, the celebrated wit, also left a fortune, under the same, and probably equally mistaken, impression."

As on the banks o' wandering Nith

Ae smiling summer morn I stray'd,
And traced its bonny howes and haughs,
Where linties sang and lambkins play'd,
I sat me down upon a craig,

And drank my fill o' fancy's dream,
When, from the eddying deep below,
Uprose the genius of the stream.

Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow,
And troubled like his wintry wave,
And deep, as sughs1 the boding wind
Amang his eaves, the sigh he gave—
"And came ye here, my son," he cried,
"To wander in my birken shade?
To muse some favourite Scottish theme,
Or sing some favourite Scottish maid ́!

"There was a time, it's nae lang syne,
Ye might hae seen me in my pride,

1 Sighs.

2 Since.

When a' my banks sae bravely saw
Their woody pictures in my tide;
When hanging beech and spreading elm
Shaded my stream sae clear and cool;
And stately oaks their twisted arms
Threw broad and dark across the pool;

"When glinting through the trees appear'd
The wee white cot aboon the mill,
And peacefu' rose its ingle reek,1
That slowly curl'd up the hill.
But now the cot is bare and cauld,
Its branchy shelter's lost and gane,
And scarce a stinted birk is left

To shiver in the blast its lane."

"Alas!" said I, "what ruefu' chance

Has twin'da ye o' your stately trees?
Has laid your rocky bosom bare?

Has stripp'd the cleeding3 o' your braes?
Was it the bitter eastern blast,

That scatters blight in early spring?
Or was't the wil'-fire scorch'd their boughs,
Or canker-worm wi' secret sting?"

"Nae eastlin blast," the sprite replied;
"It blew na here sae fierce and fell;
And on my dry and halesome banks

Nae canker-worms get leave to dwell:
Man! cruel man !" the genius sigh'd-
As through the cliffs he sank him down-
"The worm that gnaw'd my bonny trees,
That reptile wears a ducal crown!"

ADDRESS

SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HER BENEFIT NIGHT.

"WE have had a brilliant theatre here this season," the poet writes to Mrs. Dunlop; only, as all other business does, it experiences a stagnation of trade from the epidemical complaint of the country-want of cash. I mention our theatre merely to lug in an occasional address which I wrote for the benefit night of one of the actresses.'

STILL anxious to secure your partial favour,

And not less anxious, sure, this night than ever,
A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter,
'Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better;
So sought a poet, roosted near the skies,

Told him I came to feast my curious eyes;

1 The smoke of its fire.

2 Reft.

3 Clothing.