So vengeance

Awake at last th' unsparing power;

As from the cliff, with thundering course, The snowy ruin smokes along, With doubling speed and gathering force, Till deep it crashing whelms the cottage in the

vale!

TO MISS LOGAN WITH BEATTIE'S

POEMS:

AS A NEW-YEAR'S GIFT, JANUARY 1, 1787.

AGAIN the silent wheels of time

Their annual round have driven,
And you, though scarce in maiden prime,
Are so much nearer heaven.

No gifts have I from Indian coasts
The infant year to hail;

I send you more than India boasts
In Edwin's simple tale.

1 Sister of Major Logan, to whom the poet had addressed an epistle on the 30th October of the past year.

Our sex with guile and faithless love
Is charged, perhaps, too true;
But may, dear maid, each lover prove
An Edwin still to you!

BONNIE DOON.*

This song referred to an unhappy love-story of which young Peggy K. was the heroine. See vol. i. p. 203. Another copy, considerably altered, is afterwards introduced.

January, 1787.

YE flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fair!

How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu' o' care!

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings upon the bough;

Thou minds me o' the happy days
When my fause luve was true.

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,

And wistna o' my fate.

knew not

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon,
To see the woodbine twine,
And ilka bird sang o' its love,
And sae did I o' mine.

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose
Frae aff its thorny tree,

And my fause luver staw the rose,
But left the thorn wi' me.

THE GUDEWIFE OF WAUCHOPE-HOUSE TO BURNS.

During the first blaze of Burns's reputation in Edinburgh, several rhyming epistles were addressed to him publicly and privately - generally of no other value than to show how immensely he had stepped beyond all common bounds of success in cultivating the rustic Muse. One, however, from a Mrs. Scott of Wauchope, in Roxburghshire, was neatly and effectively written, and to it Burns made a suitable reply.

My cantie, witty, rhyming ploughman, I hafflins doubt it is na true, man, That ye between the stilts was bred, plough-handles Wi' ploughmen schooled, wi' ploughmen fed; I doubt it sair, ye've drawn your knowledge Either frae grammar-school or college.

half

Guid troth, your saul and body baith
War better fed, I'd gie my aith,

Than theirs who sup sour milk and parritch, And bummil through the single

Carritch.

Whaever heard the ploughman speak,
Could tell gif Homer was a Greek?
He'd flee as soon upon a cudgel,
As get a single line of Virgil.
And then sae slee ye crack your jokes
O' Willie Pitt and Charlie Fox,

bungle

Catechism

Our great men a' sae weel descrive,
And how to gar the nation thrive,
Ane maist wad swear ye dwalt amang them,
And as ye saw them, sae ye sang them.
But be ye ploughman, be ye peer,
Ye are a funny blade, I swear;

And though the cauld I ill can bide,
Yet twenty miles and mair I'd ride
O'er moss and moor, and never grumble,

make

endure

Though my auld yad should gie a stumble, jade To crack a winter night wi' thee,

And hear thy sangs and sonnets slee.
Oh gif I kenn'd but whare ye baide,
I'd send to you a marled plaid;
'Twad haud your shouthers warm and braw,
And douce at kirk or market shaw

respectable

Fra' south as weel as north, my lad,

A' honest Scotsmen lo'e the maud. shepherd's plaid

sly

resided

checkered

BURNS TO THE GUDEWIFE OF WAUCHOPE-HOUSE.

I MIND it weel in early date,

When I was beardless, young, and blate, bashful
And first could thrash the barn,
Or haud a yokin' at the pleugh,
And though forfoughten sair eneugh,
Yet unco proud to learn:
When first among the yellow corn
A man I reckoned was,
And wi' the lave ilk merry morn
Could rank my rig and lass,
Still shearing, and clearing,

The tither stookèd raw,
Wi claivers, and haivers,
Wearing the day awa'.

E'en then, a wish, I mind its power
A wish that to my latest hour

bout

fatigued

Shall strongly heave my breast
That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake,
Some usefu' plan or beuk could make,
Or sing a sang at least.

The rough burr-thissle, spreading wide
Amang the bearded bear,

I turned the weeder-clips aside,

rest

merry nonsense

row

barley