The polished leaves, and berries red, And, like a passing thought, she fled The poet is here left reassured and comforted in the all-sufficing grace of the Muse; but no such feeling, however thoroughly once established, could long hold sway over one so sensitive as he to all the harassing problems of his lowly destiny, and to all that met his eye in humble life. At every recoil from the glowing excitement of the social hour, the love-meeting, or the triumphant essay in verse, the deep contemplative melancholy which has been remembered by so many as the reigning expression of his face, again beset him. We have a description of these darker moods of his mind in a poem, otherwise sufficiently remarkable as containing an early specimen of his composition in pure English. In the Winter Night we see a reflection of Gray and Collins, as in the Epistles we see a reflection of Ramsay. 1A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, October 1852, expresses his opinion that Burns was indebted for the idea of The Vision to a copy of verses written by the 'melancholy and pensive Wollaston,' so far back as 1681. 'Wollaston's poem was written on the occasion of his leaving, "with a heavy heart," as he says, his beloved Cambridge.' He describes himself as sitting in his own small apartment:' Whose dress declared her haste, whose looks her fear; A wreath of laurel in her hand she bore, Such laurel as the god Apollo wore. The piercing wind had backward combed her hair, And laid a paint of red upon the fair; Her gown, which, with celestial colour dyed, Was with a golden girdle tied, Through speed a little flowed aside, And decently disclosed her knee; When, stopping suddenly, she spoke to me: "What indigested thought, or rash advice, Has caused thee to apostatise? Not my ill-usage, surely, made thee fly From thy apprenticeship in poetry." She paused awhile, with joy and weariness oppressed, And quick reciprocations of her breast, She spoke again: "What travel and what care Have I bestowed! my vehicle of air How often changed in quest of thee!"' She concludes, like the Muse of Burns, by counselling him to remain true to her and poetry: "Suppose the worst, thy passage rough, still I'll be kind, And breathe upon thy sails behind; Besides there is a port before: And every moment thou advancest to the shore, Concern and agitation of my head Waked me; and with the light the phantom fled.' A WINTER NIGHT. 'Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, When biting Boreas, fell and doure, Dim-darkening through the flaky shower, Ae night the storm the steeples rocked, Or, through the mining outlet bocked, Listening, the doors and winnocks rattle, I thought me on the ourie cattle, Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle O' winter war, keen-stern stare sky drooping beating And through the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle, scramble Beneath a scaur. Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing, What comes o' thee? Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing, Even you, on murdering errands toiled, While pitiless the tempest wild Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign, When on my ear this plaintive strain Slow, solemn, stole : cliff 'Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust! Than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows!1 'See stern Oppression's iron grip, Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip, Wo, Want, and Murder o'er a land! E'en in the peaceful rural vale, Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, How pampered Luxury, Flattery by her side, The parasite empoisoning her ear, With all the servile wretches in the rear, Whose toil upholds the glittering show, Some coarser substance, unrefined, Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile below. 'Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe, The powers you proudly own? Regardless of the tears and unavailing prayers! Ill satisfied keen nature's clamorous call, Stretched on his straw, he lays himself to sleep, I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer And hailed the morning with a cheer, But deep this truth impressed my mind- The heart benevolent and kind The most resembles GOD. During the autumn of 1785, Burns had an opportunity of seeing and studying a being in a great measure new to him-a young accomplished lady of the upper classes. Miss Margaret (usually called in old Scottish style, Miss Peggy) Kthe daughter of a land-proprietor in Carrick: Burns met her at the house of a Mauchline friend, where she was paying a visit. The lively conversation of the young lady, which he interpreted into wit, her youth and beauty, deeply impressed the susceptible poet, and in a spirit of respect suitable to her rank and apparent destiny in life, he made her the subject of a song, which he sent to her enclosed in a letter: TO MISS K. MADAM-Permit me to present you with the enclosed song, as a small though grateful tribute for the honour of your acquaintance. I have, in these verses, attempted some faint sketches of your portrait in the unembellished, simple manner of descriptive TRUTH. Flattery I leave to your LOVERS, whose exaggerating fancies may make them imagine you still nearer perfection than you really are. Poets, madam, of all mankind, feel most forcibly the powers of BEAUTY; as, if they are really POETS of Nature's making, their feelings must be finer, and their taste more delicate than most of the world. In the cheerful bloom of SPRING, or the pensive |