ROBERT BURNS.

WHAT bird in beauty, flight, or song,
Can with the Bard compare,

Who sang as sweet, and soar'd as strong,
As ever child of air?

His plume, his note, his form, could BURNS,
For whim or pleasure, change;

He was not one, but all by turns,
With transmigration strange.

The Blackbird, oracle of spring,
When flowed his moral lay;

The Swallow wheeling on the wing,
Capriciously at play:

The Humming-bird, from bloom to bloom, Inhaling heavenly balm;

The Raven, in the tempest's gloom;

The Halcyon, in the calm:

In "auld Kirk Alloway," the Owl,

At witching time of night;

By

"bonnie Doon," the earliest Fowl That caroll'd to the light.

He was the Wren amidst the grove,
When in this homely vein;

At Bannockburn the Bird of Jove,
With thunder in his train:

The Woodlark, in his mournful hours; The Goldfinch, in his mirth;

The Thrush, a spendthrift of his powers, Enrapturing heaven and earth :

The Swan, in majesty and grace,
Contemplative and still;

But roused,-no Falcon, in the chace,
Could like his satire kill.

The Linnet in simplicity,

In tenderness the Dove;

But more than all beside was he,

The Nightingale in love.

Oh! had he never stoop'd to shame,

Nor lent a charm to vice,

How had Devotion loved to name

That Bird of Paradise.

Peace to the dead!-In Scotia's choir
Of Minstrels great and small,

He sprang from his spontaneous fire,
The Phoenix of them all.

A THEME FOR A POET.

1814.

THE arrow that shall lay me low,
Was shot from Death's unerring bow,
The moment of my breath;

And every footstep I proceed,
It tracks me with increasing speed;
I turn,-it meets me,-Death
Has given such impulse to that dart,
It points for ever at my heart.

And soon of me it must be said,
That I have lived, that I am dead;
Of all I leave behind,

A few may weep a little while,

Then bless my memory with a smile;
What monument of mind

Shall I bequeath to deathless Fame,
That after-times may love my name?

Let Southey sing of war's alarms,
The pride of battle, din of arms,
The glory and the guilt,-
Of nations barb'rously enslaved,
Of realms by patriot valour saved,
Of blood insanely spilt,
And millions sacrificed to fate,
To make one little mortal great.

Let Scott, in wilder strains, delight
To chant the Lady and the Knight,
The tournament, the chace,
The wizard's deed without a name,
Perils by ambush, flood, and flame;
Or picturesquely trace

The hills that form a world on high,
The lake that seems a downward sky.

Let Byron, with untrembling hand,
Impetuous foot and fiery brand,
Lit at the flames of hell,

Go down and search the human heart,
Till fiends from every corner start,
Their crimes and plagues to tell;
Then let him fling the torch away,
And sun his soul in heaven's pure day.

Let Wordsworth weave in mystic rhyme Feelings ineffably sublime,

And sympathies unknown;

Yet so our yielding breasts enthral,
His Genius shall possess us all,

His thoughts become our own,
And strangely pleased, we start to find
Such hidden treasures in our mind.

Let Campbell's sweeter numbers flow
Through every change of joy and woe;
Hope's morning dreams display,
The Pennsylvanian cottage wild,
The frenzy of O'Connel's child,
Or Linden's dreadful day;

And still in each new form appear,
To every Muse and Grace more dear.

Transcendent Masters of the lyre!
Not to your honours I aspire ;
Humbler yet higher views

Have touch'd my spirit into flame;
The pomp of fiction I disclaim;
Fair Truth! be thou my muse;
Reveal in splendour deeds obscure,
Abase the proud, exalt the poor.

I sing the men who left their home,
Amidst barbarian hordes to roam,
Who land and ocean cross'd,

Led by a load-star, mark'd on high
By Faith's unseen, all-seeing eye,—
To seek and save the lost;

Where'er the curse on Adam spread,
To call his offspring from the dead.

Strong in the great Redeemer's name, They bore the cross, despised the shame; And, like their Master here,

Wrestled with danger, pain, distress,

Hunger, and cold, and nakedness,

And every form of fear;

To feel his love their only joy,

To tell that love, their sole employ.

O Thou, who wast in Bethlehem born,
The man of sorrows and of scorn,