Come, autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and grey, How does this please you? As to the point of time, for the expression, in your proposed print from my Sodger's Return, it must certainly be at-" She gaz'd." The interesting dubity and suspence taking possession of her countenance, and the gushing fondness with a mixture of roguish playfulness in his, strike me, as things of which a master will make a great deal. In great haste, but in great truth, yours. No. LXVII. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. January, 1795. I FEAR for my songs; however a few may please, yet originality is a coy feature in composition, and in a multiplicity of efforts in the same style, disappears altogether. For these three thousand years, we, poetic folks, have been describing the spring, for instance; a and wine are the exclusive themes for song-writing. The following is on neither subject, and consequently is no song; but will be allowed, I think, to be two or three pretty good prose thoughts, inverted into rhyme. FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT. Is there, for honest poverty, That hangs his head, and a' that; Our toil's obscure, and a' that, What tho' on hamely fare we dine, Their tinsel show, and a' the pair. Your observation on the difficulty of original writing in a number of efforts, in the same style, strikes me very forcibly; and it has again and again excited my wonder to find you continually surmounting this difficulty, in the many delightful songs you have sent me. Your vive la bagatelle song, For a' that, shall undoubtedly be included in my list. Tune—" LET ME IN THIS AE NIGHT.” O LASSIE, art thou sleeping yet? For love has bound me hand and foot, CHORUS. O let me in this ae night, This ae, ae, ae, night; For pity's sake this ae night, Thou hear'st the winter wind and weet, Tak pity on my weary feet, The bitter blast that round me blaws HER ANSWER. O tell na me o' wind and rain, CHORUS. I tell you now this ae night, The snellest blast, at mirkest hours, The sweetest flower that deck'd the mead, Now trodden like the vilest weed ; Let simple maid the lesson read, The bird that charm'd his summer-day, I do not know. whether it will do. No. LXX. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. MY DEAR THOMSON, Ecclefechan, 7th Feb. 1795. You cannot have any idea of the predicament in which I write to you. In the course of my duty as Supervisor (in which capacity I have acted of late), I came yesternight to this unfortunate, wicked, little village. I have gone forward, but snows of ten feet deep have impeded my progress; I have tried to " gae back the gait I cam again," but the same obstacle has shut me up within insuperable bars. To add to my misfortune, since dinner, a scraper has been torturing catgut, in sounds that would have insulted the dying agonies of a sow under the hands of a butcher, and thinks himself, on that very account, exceeding good company. In fact, I have been in a dilemma, either to get drunk, |