IX. happy love! where love like this is found! O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare ! I've paced much this weary mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declareIf heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In others' arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale." X. Is there, in human form, that bears a heart A wretch! a villain lost to love and truth! That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth! Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild? XI. But now the supper crowns their simple board, The healsome parritch, ehief o' Scotia's food: The soupe their only hawkie does afford, That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood: The dame brings forth in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell, An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid; The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell, How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell. XII. The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air. XIII. They chaunt their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name; Or noble Elgin beets the heav'n-ward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame; The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. XIV. The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; Or how the royal bard did groaning lye Beneath the stroke of heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. XV. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by heav'n's command. Then kneeling down, to Heaven's eternal king, The saint, the father, and the husband prays: Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing*,* That thus they all shall meet in future days: There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear, While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. XVII. Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride, Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart! The pow'r, incens'd, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; But haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul; And in his book of life the inmates poor enroll. XVIII. Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way; The parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to heaven the warm request That He, who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide ; But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine pre side. *Pope's Windsor Forest. XIX. From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, "An honest man's the noblest work of God And certes, in fair virtue's heav'nly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd! XX. → Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to heaven iş .sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! And, O! may heaven their simple lives prevent From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd isle. XXI, O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted heart; Who dar'd to nobly stem tyrannic pride, But still the patriot, and the patriot bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN. A DIRGE. I. When chill November's surly blast Made fields and forests bare, One ev❜ning, as I wander'd forth Along the banks of Ayr, I spy'd a man, whose aged step II. Young stranger, whither wand'rest thou? Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, Or haply, prest with cares and woes, To wander forth, with me, to mourn III. The sun that overhangs yon moors, IV. O man! while in thy early years, Thy glorious youthful prime! |