The promised father's tender name; How have the raptured moments flown, My secret heart's exulting boast? Oh! can she bear so base a heart, The plighted husband of her youth! Her way may lie through rough distress! Ye winged hours that o'er us pass'd, The morn that warns th' approaching day That I must suffer, lingering, slow. And when my nightly couch I try, Sore harass'd out with care and grief, My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye, Keep watchings with the nightly thief: Or if I slumber, fancy, chief, Reigns haggard-wild, in sore affright : Even day, all-bitter, brings relief From such a horror-breathing night. O thou bright queen, who o'er th' expanse Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway! Oft has thy silent-marking glance Observed us, fondly wandering, stray! The time, unheeded, sped away, While love's luxurious pulse beat high, Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray, Oh! scenes in strong remembrance set! Again I feel, again I burn! DESPONDENCY: AN ODE. IN speaking of this poem, Burns says, "I think it is one of the greatest pleasures attending a poetic genius, that we can give our woes, cares, joys, and loves, an embodied form in verse, which to me is ever immediate ease." OPPRESS'D with grief, oppress'd with care, A burden more than I can bear, I set me down and sigh: To wretches such as I! Dim, backward, as I cast my view, What sorrows yet may pierce me through, Still caring, despairing, Must be my bitter doom: My woes here shall close ne'er, Happy, ye sons of busy life, Even when the wishèdend's denied, Meet every sad returning night How blest the solitary's lot, The cavern wild with tangling roots, Beside his crystal well! The ways of men are distant brought, While praising, and raising His thoughts to Heaven on high, Than I, no lonely hermit placed But, ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys The solitary can despise, Can want, and yet be blest! Oh! enviable, early days, When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze, Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport, Ye little know the ills ye court, That active man engage! ODE TO RUIN. CURRIE says:-"It appears from internal evidence that the above lines were composed in 1786, when 'Hungry Ruin had him in the wind.' The 'dart' that 'Cut my dearest tie, And quivers in my heart,' is evidently an allusion to his separation from his 'bonny Jean.' Burns seems to have glanced into futurity with a prophetic eye: images of misery and woe darkened the distant vista: and when he looked back on his career he saw little to console him.-'I have been, this morning,' he observes, taking a peep through, as Young finely says, "the dark postern of time long elapsed." 'Twas a rueful prospect! What a tissue of thoughtlessness, weakness, and folly! My life reminded me of a ruined temple. What strength, what proportion, in some parts! What unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruins in others! I kneeled down before the Father of mercies and said, "Father, I have sinned against_heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." I rose, eased and strengthened. " ALL hail! inexorable lord! At whose destruction-breathing word With stern-resolved, despairing eye, I see each aimèd dart ; For one has cut my dearest tie, Then lowering and pouring, The storm no more I dread ; And thou grim power, by life abhorr'd, My weary heart its throbbings cease, No fear more, no tear more, Within thy cold embrace' ADDRESS OF BEELZEBUB TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE HIGHLAND SOCIETY. THE history of this poem is as follows:-"On Tuesday, May 23, there was a meeting of the Highland Society at London for the encouragement of the fisheries in the Highlands, &c. Three thousand pounds were immediately subscribed by eleven gentlemen present for this particular purpose. The Earl of Breadalbane informed the meeting that five hundred persons had agreed to emigrate from the estates of Mr. Macdonald of Glengarry; that they had subscribed money, purchased ships, &c., to carry their design into effect. The noblemen and gentlemen agreed to co-operate with Government to frustrate their design; and to recommend to the principal noblemen and gentlemen in the Highlands to endeavour to prevent emigration, by improving the fisheries, agriculture, and manufactures, and particularly to enter into a subscription for that purpose."-Edinburgh Advertiser of 30th May 1786. In view of the indignation excited some fifteen or twenty years ago against the forcible eviction of poor people from estates in the Highlands of Scotland, the reader of to-day may be pardoned feeling some surprise at the expression of the poet's feelings against a laudable attempt to retain his countrymen in independence on their native soi!. The Address first appeared in the Scots Magazine with the following heading:-"To the Right Honourable the Earl of Breadalbane, President of the Right Honourable and Honourable the Highland Society, which met on the 23d of May last, at the Shakespeare, Covent Garden, to concert ways and means to frustrate the designs of five hundred Highlanders, who, as the Society were informed by Mr. M― of A-s, were so audacious as to attempt an escape from their lawful lords and masters, whose property they were, by emigrating from the lands of Mr. Macdonald of Glengarry, to the wilds of Canada, in search of that fantastic thing LIBERTY." 1 Ragged. LONG life, my lord, and health be yours, Nae sage North, now, nor sager Sackville, And save the honour o' the nation? The young dogs, swinges them to the labour; 2 Mackenzie of Apple cross. 3 Pretty well. 4 And strip the clowns to 5 Sold out and despoiled. 9 |