THE AULD FARMER'S NEW-YEAR-MORNING SALUTATION TO HIS AULD MARE, MAGGIE, ON GIVING HER THE ACCUSTOMED RIPP OF CORN TO HANSEL IN THE NEW-YEAR. [What a delightful piece of auto-biography the good old man recites to his auld mare, as he gives her the usual New-Year-Morning hansel! The whole poem is in the Author's best manner, and ranks with Poor Mailie in its happy combination of humour and tenderness. A celebrated panegyrist of the poet declares that to his certain knowledge, the reading of it has "humanized the heart of a Gilmerton carter!"] A Guid New-year I wish you Maggie! Thou could hae gaen like ony staggie Tho' now thou's dowie, stiff an' crazy, He should been tight that daur't to raize thee, Thou ance was i' the foremost rank, An' set weel down a shapely shank, As e'er tread yird; An' could hae flown out owre a stank, It's now some nine-an'-twenty-year, An' fifty mark; Tho' it was sma', 'twas weel-won gear, An' thou was stark. When first I gaed to woo my Jenny, Ye then was trottan wi' your Minnie: Tho' ye was trickie, slee an' funnie, Ye ne'er was donsie ; But hamely, tawie, quiet an' cannie, That day, ye pranc'd wi' muckle pride, Wi' maiden air! KYLE-STEWART I could bragged wide, For sic a pair. Tho' now ye dow but hoyte and hoble, An' wintle like a saumont-coble, That day, ye was a jinker noble, For heels an' win'! An' ran them till they a' did wauble, When thou an' I were young an' skiegh, An' tak the road! Towns-bodies ran an' stood abiegh, An' ca't thee mad. When thou was corn't, an' I was mellow, We took the road ay like a Swallow: At Brooses thou had ne'er a fellow, For pith an' speed; But ev'ry tail thou pay't them hollow, Whare'er thou gaed. The sma', droot-rumpl't, hunter cattle, Might aiblins waur't thee for a brattle; But sax Scotch mile,* thou try't their mettle, An' gart them whaizle: Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle O' saugh or hazle. *Altered, in 1787, to "miles." Thou was a noble Fittie-lan', On guid March-weather, Hae turn'd sax rood beside our han', For days thegither. Thou never braing't, an' fetch't, an' flisket, Till sprittie knowes wad rair't an' risket, When frosts lay lang, an' snaws were deep, An' threaten'd labor back to keep, I gied thy cog a wee-bit heap Aboon the timmer; I ken'd my Maggie wad na sleep For that, or Simmer. In cart or car thou never reestet; But just thy step a wee thing hastet, My Pleugh is now thy bairn-time a'; Four gallant brutes, as e'er did draw; Forby sax mae, I've sell't awa, That thou hast nurst: They drew me thretteen pund an' twa, The vera warst. Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought, An' wi' the weary warl' fought! An' monie an anxious day, I thought We wad be beat! Yet here to crazy Age we're brought, An' think na, my auld, trusty Servan', That now perhaps thou's less deservin, An' thy auld days may end in starvin', For my last fow, A heapet Stimpart, I'll reserve ane We've worn to crazy years thegither; We'll toyte about wi' ane anither Wi' tentie care I'll flit thy tether, ; To some hain'd rig, Whare ye may nobly rax your leather, Wi' sma' fatigue. THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. INSCRIBED TO R. A****, Esq.* Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, GRAY. [The spirit of Poetry is akin to that of Religion, and the union of the two is, in no human composition, more powerful than in the present production. The two concluding stanzas of this noble poem, the first being a patriotic apostrophe fervently recited by the bard, with head uncovered, and kneeling on English the first time into the sister kingdom, on the morning of Monday, 8th May, 1787, while on his Border tour with Ainslie. The grand reference to Sir William Wallace in the last stanza, and another noble verse or two on the same hero, in the Epistle to W S observation in his autobiography, when speaking of the books perused by him during his early boyhood:-"The story of Wallace poured a tide of Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the floodgates of life Ochiltree, will recall to the reader the poet's shut in eternal rest." The fine religious tone of this whole poem, together with the noble tributes to Wallace, above referred to, procured for the bard the friendship of Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop, a lineal descendent of that patriot's brother. She, however, the poet, and she urged him to alter the phrase in his first Edinburgh Edition. could not be reconciled to the epithet "great, unhappy Wallace" adopted by In his letter to her of 15th January, 1787, he says, "The word you object to, borrowed from Thomson, does not strike me as being an improper epithet. I distrusted my own opinion of some literati here, who honour me with their critical strictures, and Mr lov'd, my honor'd, much respected friend, To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, Robert Aiken, writer in Ayr, one of the poet's early friends and patrons. |