'Yet all beneath th' unrivalled rose,

The lowly daisy sweetly blows:

Though large the forest's monarch throws
His army shade,

Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows

Adown the glade.

"Then never murmur or repine;

Strive in thy humble sphere to shine;
And trust me, not Potosi's mine,

Nor king's regard,

Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,

A rustic bard.

'To give my counsels all in one-
Thy tuneful flame still careful fan;
Preserve the dignity of man,

With soul erect;

And trust, the Universal Plan

Will all protect.

And wear thou this'-she solemn said,
And bound the holly round my head:
The polished leaves, and berries red,
Did rustling play:

And, like a passing thought, she fled

In light away.

THE BRIGS OF AYR.

THE simple bard, rough at the rustic plough,
Learning his tuneful trade from every bough;
The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,

Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn-bush;
The soaring lark, the perching redbreast shrill,

Or deep-toned plovers, grey, wild-whistling o'er the hill;

Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed,
To hardy independence bravely bred,
By early poverty to hardship steeled,

And trained to arms in stern misfortune's field,
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
Or labour hard the panegyric close,

With all the venal soul of dedicating prose?
No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings,
He glows with all the spirit of the bard,
Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward.
Still, if some patron's generous care he trace,
Skilled in the secret, to bestow with grace;
When Ballantyne befriends his humble name,
And hands the rustic stranger up to fame,
With heartfelt throes his grateful bosom swells,
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.

'Twas when the stacks get on their winter hap,
And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap;
Potato-bings are snuggèd up fra skaith
Of coming winter's biting, frosty breath;
The bees rejoicing o'er their summer toils,
Unnumbered buds and flowers, delicious spoils,
Sealed up with frugal care in massive waxen piles,
Are doomed by man, that tyrant o'er the weak,
The death o' devils, smoored wi' brimstone reek:
The thundering guns are heard on every side,
The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide;
The feathered field-mates, bound by Nature's tie,
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie:
(What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds,
And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds!)

Nae mair the flower in field or meadow springs:
Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings,
Except perhaps the robin's whistling glee,
Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree:
The hoary morns precede the sunny days,

Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noontide blaze,
While thick the gossamour waves wanton in the rays.

'Twas in that season, when a simple bard,
Unknown and poor-simplicity's reward-
Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr,
By whim inspired, or haply prest with care;
He left his bed, and took his wayward route,
And down by Simpson's wheeled the left about:
(Whether impelled by all-directing Fate,
To witness what I after shall narrate;
Or whether, rapt in meditation high,

He wandered out he knew not where nor why)
The drowsy Dungeon-clock had numbered two,
And Wallace Tower had sworn the fact was true:
The tide-swol'n Firth, with sullen sounding roar,
Through the still night dashed hoarse along the shore:
All else was hushed as Nature's closèd e'e;
The silent moon shone high o'er tower and tree;
The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam,
Crept, gently crusting, o'er the glittering stream.

When lo! on either hand the list'ning bard,
The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard;
Two dusky forms dart through the midnight air,
Swift as the gos drives on the wheeling hare;
Ane on th' Auld Brig his airy shape uprears,
The ither flutters o'er the rising piers:
Our warlock rhymer instantly descried
The sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside.

(That bards are second-sighted is nae joke,
And ken the lingo of the spiritual folk;

Fays, spunkies, kelpies, a', they can explain them,
And ev❜n the very deils they brawly ken them.)
Auld Brig appeared of ancient Pictish race,
The very wrinkles Gothic in his face:
He seemed as he wi' Time had warstled lang,
Yet, teughly doure, he bade an unco bang.
New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat,
That he at Lon'on, frae ane Adams, got;
In's hand five taper staves as smooth's a bead,
With virls and whirlygigums at the head.
The Goth was stalking round with anxious search,
Spying the time-worn flaws in every arch;
It chanced his new-come neebor took his e'e,
And e'en a vexed and angry heart had he!
Wi' thieveless sneer to see his modish mien,
He, down the water, gies him this guid-een :-

AULD BRIG.

I doubt na', frien', ye'll think ye're nae sheepshank,
Ance ye were streekit o'er frae bank to bank!
But gin ye be a brig as auld as me-

Though faith that day I doubt ye'll never see;
There'll be, if that date come, I'll wad a boddle,
Some fewer whigmeleeries in your noddle.

NEW BRIG.

Auld Vandal, ye but show your little mense,
Just much about it wi' your scanty sense;
Will your poor, narrow footpath of a street,
Where twa wheelbarrows tremble when they meet,
Your ruined, formless bulk, o' stane an' lime,
Compare wi' bonnie brigs o' modern time?

There's men o' taste would tak the Ducat stream,
Though they should cast the very sark and swim,

Ere they would grate their feelings wi' the view
Of sic an ugly, Gothic hulk as you.

AULD BRIG.

Conceited gowk! puffed up wi' windy pride;
This mony a year I've stood the flood and tide;
And though wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn,
I'll be a brig when ye're a shapeless cairn!
As yet ye little ken about the matter,
But twa-three winters will inform ye better.
When heavy, dark, continued, a'-day rains,
Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains;
When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil,
Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil,

Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course,
Or haunted Garpal draws his feeble source,
Aroused by blustering winds an' spotting thowes,
In mony a torrent down his snaw-broo rowes;
While crashing ice, borne on the roaring spate,
Sweeps dams, an' mills, an' brigs, a' to the gate;
And from Glenbuck, down to the Ratton-key,
Auld Ayr is just one lengthened, tumbling sea;
Then down ye'll hurl, deil nor ye never rise!
And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring skies,
A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost,

That architecture's noble art is lost!

NEW BRIG.

Fine architecture, trowth, I needs must say 't o't!
The Lord be thankit that we've tint the gate o't!
Gaunt, ghastly, ghaist-alluring edifices,
Hanging with threatening jut, like precipices;
O'er-arching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves,
Supporting roofs fantastic, stony groves:
Windows and doors, in nameless sculpture drest,
With order, symmetry, or taste unblest;