And, to support his helpless woodbine state,
Attached him to the generous truly great,
A title, and the only one I claim,

To lay strong hold for help on bounteous
Graham.

713

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, proverbed Wisdom's hardwrung 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, 714 Who feel by reason and who give by rule, (Instinct 's a brute, and sentiment a fool!) Who make poor will do" wait upon “I

should "

66

We own they 're prudent, but who feels they 're good?

Ye wise ones, hence! ye hurt the social eye! God's image rudely etched on base alloy!

But come ye who the godlike pleasure know, Heaven's attribute distinguished--to bestow! Whose arms of love would grasp the human

race:

Come, thou who giv'st with all a courtier's

grace;

715

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, abashed 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 pride sublimely flows,

Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose. 716
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 gates the lark's shrill song as-
cends,

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, patronize their tinsel lays,
They persecute you all your future days! 717
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 wished-for height,

Where, man and nature fairer in her sight, My Muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight.

A MOTHER'S LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF HER SON.

[Composed in the saddle, while riding from Nithsdale to Mauchline, a distance of forty-six miles, before daybreak one morning in the September of 1788, in memory of a youth of eighteen or nineteen, the then recently deceased son of Mrs. Fergusson of Craigdarroch, who was supposed thus to give utterance to her lamentations.]

FATE gave the word, the arrow sped,
And pierced my darling's heart;
And with him all the joys are fled
Life can to me impart.

By cruel hands the sapling drops,
In dust dishonoured laid:
So fell the pride of all my hopes,
My age's future shade.

718

The mother-linnet in the brake
Bewails her ravished young;
So I, for my lost darling's sake,
Lament the live-day long,

719

Death, oft I've feared thy fatal blow,

Now, fond, I bare my breast;

Oh, do thou kindly lay me low

With him I love, at rest!

ELEGY ON THE YEAR 1788.

[This Elegy, which the Poet also entitled a Sketch, was dated by him the New Year's Day of 1789. It first found its way into the newspapers, afterwards into the chapbooks, and eventually into his collected writings.]

FOR lords or kings I dinna mourn,

E'en let them die-for that they 're born!
But, oh! prodigious to reflec'!

A towmont, Sirs, is gane to wreck!
O Eighty-eight, in thy sma' space
What dire events ha'e taken place!
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us!
In what a pickle thou hast left us!

The Spanish empire 's tint a head,
And my auld teethless Bawtie 's dead;
The tulzie 's sair 'tween Pitt and Fox,
And our guidwife's wee birdie cocks;
The tane is game, a bluidy devil,
But to the hen-birds unco civil;
The tither 's something dour o' treadin',
But better stuff ne'er clawed a midden.

Ye ministers, come mount the pu❜pit,
And cry till ye be hoarse and roopit,
For Eighty-eight he wished you weel,
And gied you a' baith gear and meal;
E'en mony a plack, and mony a peck,
Ye ken yoursel's, for little feck!
Ye bonnie lasses, dight your een,
For some o' you ha’e tint a frien';
In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was ta'en
What ye 'll ne'er ha'e to gi'e again.

720

721

722

Observe the very nowte and sheep,
How dowf and dowie now they creep;
Nay, even the yirth itsel' does cry,
For Embrugh wells are grutten dry.

O Eighty-nine, thou 's but a bairn,
And no owre auld, I hope, to learn!
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak' care,
Thou now hast got thy daddy's chair;
Nae handcuffed, muzzled, half-shackled Re-

gent,

But, like himsel', a full, free agent,

Be sure ye follow out the plan

723

Nae waur than he did, honest man!

As muckle better as you can.

ODE.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. OSWALD OF AUCHINCRUIVE.

[Composed during a tempestuous night's ride across the moors and hills of Ayrshire, from Sanquhar to New Cumnock. At Bailie Wigham's, the only tolerable inn at Sanquhar, the Poet had just taken shelter from the storm one night in the January of 1789, and was beginning to hob-and-nob over a bowl of punch with his friend and landlord, the Bailie, when further refreshment was summarily denied to both man and beast-Burns being compelled to remount his jaded steed, and to pursue his journey through the foul weather, by reason of the incursion upon the little hostelry of the funeral train of the great lady of the neighbourhood, who all her life had been an object of detestation to her servants and tenantry. When the Poet, drenched and angered, arrived at New Cumnock, he sat down before a good peat fire, and penned the subjoined.]