J May He, the friend of wo and want, But late she flourished, rooted fast, Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem, And from thee many a parent stem pangs November, 1790. ELEGY ON THE LATE MISS BURNET OF "I have these several months been hammering at an elegy on the amiable and accomplished Miss Burnet. I have got, and can get no further than the following fragment."- Burns to Mr. Cunningham, 23d January, 1791. This beautiful creature, to whom Burns paid so high a compliment in his Address to Edinburgh, had been carried off by consumption, 17th June, 1790. LIFE ne'er exulted in so rich a prize As Burnet, lovely from her native skies; Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget? In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves; Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore, Ye woodland choir that chant your idle loves, Ye cease to charm - Eliza is no more! Ye heathy wastes, immixed with reedy fens, Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stored, Ye rugged cliffs, o'erhanging dreary glens, Princes, whose cumbrous pride was all their worth, Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail, And thou, sweet excellence! forsake our earth, And not a Muse in honest grief bewail? We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride, And virtue's light, that beams beyond the spheres ; But, like the sun eclipsed at morning-tide, Thou left'st us darkling in a world of tears. The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee, That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care! So decked the woodbine sweet yon aged tree; So from it ravished, leaves it bleak and bare. LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING. "The ballad on Queen Mary was begun while I was busy with Percy's Reliques of English Poetry.” — Burns, February, 1791. Now Nature hangs her mantle green On every blooming tree, And spreads her sheets o' daisies white Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams, And glads the azure skies; But nought can glad the weary wight Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, The merle, in his noontide bower, Now blooms the lily by the bank, And milk white is the slae ; The meanest hind in fair Scotland May rove their sweets amang; But I, the queen of a' Scotland, Maun lie in prison strang! I was the queen o' bonny France, As blithe lay down at e'en: And never-ending care. blackbird thrush sloe But as for thee, thou false woman! Grim vengeance yet shall whet a sword The weeping blood in woman's breast Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of wo Frae woman's pitying e'e. My son my son! may kinder stars And may those pleasures gild thy reign, That ne'er wad blink on mine! God keep thee frae thy mother's faes, Or turn their hearts to thee; look kindly And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, Remember him for me! O soon to me may summer suns And the next flowers that deck the spring |