MR. HUGH PARKER was a Kilmarnock merchant, and one of his early friends.
IN this strange land, this uncouth clime,
A land unknown to prose or rhyme;
Where words ne'er crost the Muse's heckles,+
Nor limpit in poetic shackles ;
A land that Prose did never view it,
Except when drunk he stachert through it;
Here, ambush'd by the chimla cheek,5
Hid in an atmosphere of reek,"
I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk,?
I hear it-for in vain I leuk.
The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel,
Enhusked by a fog infernal:
Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,
I sit and count my sins by chapters;
For life and spunk like ither Christians,
I'm dwindled down to mere existence;
Wi' nae converse but Gallowa' bodies,
Wi' nae kenn'd face but Jenny Geddes.‡
Jenny, my Pegasean pride!
Dowie she saunters down Nithside,
And aye a westlin leuk she throws,
While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose!
Was it for this wi' canny care,
Thou bure the bard through many a shire?
At howes or hillocks never stumbled,
And late or early never grumbled?
Oh, had I power like inclination,
I'd heeze thee up a constellation,
*This epistle was written on one of his journeys while connected with the Excise.
In a note to the Address to the Toothache, a description of a heckle is given. A reference to it will make the poet's meaning obvious.
To canter with the Sagitarre,
Or loup the ecliptic like a bar;
Or turn the pole like any arrow;
Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow,
Down the zodiac urge the race,
And cast dirt on his godship's face;
For I could lay my bread and kail
He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail.
Wi' a' this care and a' this grief,
And sma', sma' prospect of relief,
And nought but peet-reek i' my head,
How can I write what ye can read?
Torbolton, twenty-fourth o' June,
Ye'll find me in a better tune;
But till we meet and weet our whistle,
Tak this excuse for nae epistle.
FIRST EPISTLE TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ. OF FINTRY.
ROBERT GRAHAM of Fintry was a Commissioner of Excise. Burns, in writing to Mrs. Dunlop, enclosed a portion of this epistle, and says, "Since I am in the way of transcribing, the following lines were the production of yesterday, as I jogged through the wild hills of New Cumnock. I intend inserting them, or something like them, in an epistle which I am going to write to the gentleman on whose friendship my Excise hopes depend, Mr. Graham of Fintry, one of the worthiest and most accomplished gentlemen, not only of this country, but, I will dare to say, of this age.'
WHEN Nature her great masterpiece design'd,
And framed her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form'd of various parts the various man.
Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding industry and sober worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise' whole genus take their birth :
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics' many-apron'd kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net;
The caput mortuum of gross desires
Makes a material for mere knights and squires;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow,
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,
Then marks th' unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines:
Last, she sublimes th' Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.
The order'd system fair before her stood,
Nature, well pleased, pronounced it very good;
But ere she gave creating labour o'er,
Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more.
Some spumy, fiery, ignis-fatuus matter,
Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter;
With arch alacrity and conscious glee
(Nature may have her whim as well as we,
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it)
She forms the thing, and christens it—a Poet,
Creature, though oft the prey of care and sorrow,
When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow.
A being form'd t' amuse his graver friends,
Admired and praised-and there the homage ends:
A mortal quite unfit for Fortune's strife,
Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life;
Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give,
Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live;
Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groan,
Yet frequent all unheeded in his own.
But honest Nature is not quite a Turk,
She laugh'd at first, then felt for her poor
Pitying the propless climber of mankind,
She cast about a standard tree to find;
And, to support his helpless woodbine state,
Attach'd him to the generous truly great,
A title, and the only one I claim,
To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham.
Pity the tuneful Muses' hapless train,
Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main !
Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff,
That never gives-though humbly takes enough;
The little fate allows, they share as soon,
Unlike sage, proverb'd, wisdom's hard-wrung boon.
The world were blest did bliss on them depend:
Ah that "the friendly e'er should want a friend!"
Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son,
Who life and wisdom at one race begun,
Who feel by reason and who give by rule,
(Instincts a brute, and sentiment a fool!)
Who make poor will do wait upon I should-
We own they're prudent, but who feels they're good?
Ye wise ones, hence! ye hurt the social eye!
God's image rudely etch'd on base alloy !
But come, ye who the godlike pleasure know
Heaven's attribute distinguish'd-to bestow !
Whose arms of love would grasp the human race:
Come thou who givest with all a courtier's grace;
Friend of my life, true patron of my rhymes!
Prop of my dearest hopes for future times.
Why shrinks my soul half-blushing, half-afraid,
Backward, abash'd to ask thy friendly aid?
I know my need, I know thy giving hand,
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command;
But there are such who court the tuneful Nine-
Heavens should the branded character be mine!
Whose verse in manhood's prime sublimely flows,
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose.
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit
Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit!
Seek not the proofs in private life to find;
Pity the best of words should be but wind!
So to heaven's gate the lark's shrill song ascends,
But grovelling on the earth the carol ends.
In all the clam'rous cry of starving want,
They dun benevolence with shameless front;
Oblige them, patronise their tinsel lays,
They persecute you all your future days!
Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain,
My horny fist assume the plough again;
The piebald jacket let me patch once more;
On eighteenpence a week I've lived before.
Though, thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift,
I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift :
That, placed by thee upon the wish'd-for height,
Where, man and nature fairer in her sight,
My Muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight.
EPISTLE TO JAMES TAIT OF GLENCONNER.
THIS gentleman accompanied Burns in his Nithsdale tour, and advised him respecting Ellisland. In writing to a correspondent, he says, "I am just returned from Miller's farm. My old friend, whom I took with me, was highly pleased with the bargain, and advised me to accept of it. He is the most intelligent, sensible farmer in the county, and his advice has staggered me a good deal." The personages alluded to in the epistle were friends or acquaintances of Mr. Tait's.
AULD Comrade dear, and brither sinner,
How's a' the folk about Glenconner?
How do ye this blae eastlin win',
That's like to blaw a body blin'?
For me, my faculties are frozen,
My dearest member nearly dozen'.1
I've sent you here, by Johnnie Simson
Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on!
Smith, wi' his sympathetic feeling,
And Reid, to common sense appealing.
Philosophers have fought and wrangled,
And meikle Greek and Latin mangled,
Till wi' their logic-jargon tired,
And in the depth of science mired,
To common sense they now appeal,
What wives and wabsters1 see and feel.
But, hark ye, frien'! I charge you strictly,
Peruse them, and return them quickly,
For now I'm grown sae cursèd douce 2
and ponder butt the house;
My shins, my lane,3 I there sit roastin',
Perusing Bunyan, Brown, and Boston;
Till by and by, if I haud on,
I'll grunt a real gospel-groan :
Already I begin to try it,
To cast my een up like a pyet,*
When by the gun she tumbles o'er,
Fluttering and gasping in her gore:
Sae shortly you shall see me bright,
A burning and a shining light.
My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen,
The ace and wale5 of honest men :
When bending down wi' auld gray hairs,
Beneath the load of years and cares,
May He who made him still support him,
And views beyond the grave comfort him.
His worthy family, far and near,
God bless them a' wi' grace and gear!
My auld schoolfellow, preacher Willie,
The manly tar, my Mason Billie,
And Auchenbay, I wish him joy;
If he's a parent, lass or boy,
May he be dad, and Meg the mither,
Just five-and-forty years thegither!
And no forgetting Wabster Charlie,
I'm tauld he offers very fairly.
And, Lord, remember Singing Sannock
Wi' hale breeks, saxpence, and a bannock.
And next my auld acquaintance, Nancy,
Since she is fitted to her fancy;
And her kind stars hae airted till her
A good chiel wi' a pickle siller.8
1 Weavers.
2 Serious.
3 By myself. 4 Magpie.
6 Whole breeches, sixpence,
and an oat cake.
7 Directed.
8 Some money.
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