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"Must thou, the noble, gen'rous, great,
"Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime?
"Why did I live to see that day?

"A day to me so full of woe? "O! had I met the mortal shaft

"Which laid my benefactor low!

"The bridegroom may forget the bride,
"Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
"The monarch may forget the crown
"That on his head an hour has been;
"The mother may forget the child

"That smiles sae sweetly on her knee; "But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,

"And a' that thou hast done for me!"

70

8C

LINES, SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEFORD, OF

WHITEFORD,* BART.

WITH THE FOREGOING POEM.

HOU, who thy honour as thy God rever'st.

Who, save thy mind's reproach, nought earthly fear'st,

To thee this votive off'ring I impart,

The tearful tribute of a broken heart.

* Sir John Whiteford, to whom Burns sent a copy of his "Lament for the Earl of Glencairn," was one of his earliest and most valuable patrons. Several letters to him from Sir John Whiteford occur in the Poet's correspondence.

The Friend thou valued'st, I, the Patron, lov'd;
His worth, his honour, all the world approv'd.
We'll mourn till we too go as he has gone,

And tread the dreary path to that dark world unknown.

TAM O' SHANTER.*

A TALE.

Of Brownyis and of Bogilis full is this Buke.

Gawin Douglas.

HEN chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,

W

An' folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,

"When my father," says Gilbert Burns, "feued his little property near Alloway-Kirk, the wall of the churchyard had gone to ruin, and cattle had free liberty of pasturing in it. My father with two or three other neighbours joined in an application to the town council of Ayr, who were superiors of the adjoining land, for liberty to rebuild it, and raised by subscription a sum for enclosing this ancient cemetery with a wall; hence he came to consider it as his burial-place, and we learned that reverence for it people generally have for the burial-place of their ancestors. brother was living in Ellisland, when Captain Grose, on his peregrinations through Scotland, staid some time at Carsehouse, in the neighbourhood, with Captain Robert Riddel, of Glenriddel, a particular friend of my brother's. The Antiquarian and the Poet were unco pack and thick the gither.' Robert requested of Captain Grose, when he should come to Ayrshire, that he would make a drawing of Allo

My

We thinkna on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and styles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter,
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie lasses).

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way-Kirk, as it was the burial-place of his father, and where he himself had a sort of claim to lay down his bones when they should be no longer serviceable to him; and added, by way of encouragement, that it was the scene of many a good story of witches and apparitions, of which he knew the captain was very fond. The captain agreed to the request, provided the poet would furnish a witch story, to be printed along with it. 'Tam o' Shanter' was produced on this occasion, and was first published in Grose's Antiquities of Scotland.

"The poem is founded on a traditional story. The leading circumstances of a man riding home very late from Ayr, in a stormy night, his seeing a light in Alloway-Kirk, his having the curiosity to look in, his seeing a dance of witches, with the devil playing on the bagpipe to them, the scanty covering of one of the witches, which made him so far forget himself as to cry-Weel loupen, short sark!'-with the melancholy catastrophe of the piece; it is all a true story, that can be well attested by many respectable old people in that neighbourhood."

The Poet has, however, himself related the story on which this inimitable production was founded, in a Letter to Francis Grose, the facetious antiquary:

"On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay by the very gate. of Alloway kirk-yard, in order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about two or three hundred yards further on than the said gate, had been detained by his business, 'till by the time he reached Alloway it was the wizard hour, between night and morning.

O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise,
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou wast a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou wast na sober;
That ilka melder, wi' the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on;

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"Though he was terrified, with a blaze streaming from the kirk, yet as it is a well-known fact that to turn back on these occasions is running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirk-yard, he was surprised and entertained, through the ribs and arches of an old gothic window, which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping them all alive with the power of his bagpipe. The farmer stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many old women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the gentleman was dressed, tradition does not say; but the ladies were all in their smocks and one of them happening unluckily to have a smock which was considerably too short to answer all the purpose of that piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled, that he involuntarily burst out, with a loud laugh, 'Weel luppen, Maggy wi' the short shark!' and recollecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to the top of his speed. I need not mention the universally known fact, that no diabolical power can pursue you beyond the middle of a running stream. Lucky it was for the poor farmer that the river Doon was so near, for notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which was a good one, against he reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the middle of the stream, the pursuing, vengeful hags, were so close at his heels, that one of them actually sprung to seize him; but it was too late, nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse's tail, which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her

That at the Lord's house, ev'n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi' Kirton Jean till Monday.
She prophesy'd that, late or soon,

Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon; 30
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.

Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how monie counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen'd, sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises !

reach. However, the unsightly, tail-less condition of the vigorous steed was to the last hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick farmers, not to stay too late in Ayr Markets."-Cromek's Reliques of Burns, p. 126-8.

Some of the incidents, and particularly the ghastly exhibition on the Holy Table, were however taken from another "witch story," communicated to Grose on the same occasion:

"Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls of wind, and bitter blasts of hail; in short, on such a night as the devil would chuse to take the air in; a farmer or farmer's servant was plodding and plashing homeward with his plough irons on his shoulder, having been getting some

repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His way lay by the kirk of Alloway, and being rather on the anxious lookout in approaching a place so well known to be a favourite haunt of the devil and the devil's friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by discovering through the horrors of the storm and stormy night, a light, which on his nearer approach, plainly shewed itself to proceed from the haunted edifice. Whether he had been fortified from above on his devout supplication, as is customary with people when they suspect the immediate presence of Satan; or whether, according to another custom, he had got courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to determine; but so it was that he ventured to go up to, nay into the very kirk. As good luck would have it his temerity came off unpun ished.

"The members of the infernal junto were all out on some

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