BURNS.

TO A ROSE, BROUGHT FROM NEAR ALLOWAY KIRK, IN

AYRSHIRE, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1822.

W

ILD Rose of Alloway! my thanks;

Thou 'mindst me of that autumn noon

When first we met upon "the banks

And braes o' bonny Doon."

Like thine, beneath the thorn-tree's bough,
My sunny hour was glad and brief,
We've crossed the winter sea, and thou
Art withered-flower and leaf.

And will not thy death-doom be mine-
The doom of all things wrought of clay—

And withered my life's leaf like thine,
Wild rose of Alloway?

Not so his memory, for his sake

My bosom bore thee far and long,
His-who a humbler flower could make
Immortal as his song,

The memory of Burns—a name

That calls, when brimmed her festal cup,

A nation's glory and her shame,

In silent sadness up.

A nation's glory-be the rest

Forgot-she's canonized his mind;

And it is joy to speak the best
We may of human kind.

I've stood beside the cottage-bed

Where the Bard-peasant first drew breath;

A straw-thatched roof above his head,
A straw-wrought couch beneath.

And I have stood beside the pile,

His monument-that tells to Heaven

The homage of earth's proudest isle
To that Bard-peasant given !

Bid thy thoughts hover o'er that spot,
Boy-minstrel, in thy dreaming hour;
And know, however low his lot,
A Poet's pride and power:

The pride that lifted Burns from earth,
The power that gave a child of song
Ascendency o'er rank and birth,

The rich, the brave, the strong;

BURNS.

And if despondency weigh down

Thy spirit's fluttering pinions then, Despair-thy name is written on

The roll of common men.

There have been loftier themes than his,
And longer scrolls, and louder lyres,
And lays lit up with Poesy's

Purer and holier fires:

Yet read the names that know not death;
Few nobler ones than Burns are there;
And few have won a greener wreath

Than that which binds his hair.

His is that language of the heart,

In which the answering heart would speak, Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, Or the smile light the cheek;

And his that music, to whose tone

The common pulse of man keeps time,

In cot or castle's mirth or moan,

In cold or sunny clime.

And who hath heard his song, nor knelt
Before its spell with willing knee,
And listened, and believed, and felt
The Poet's mastery

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O'er the mind's sea, in calm and storm, O'er the heart's sunshine and its showers, O'er Passion's moments bright and warm, O'er Reason's dark, cold hours;

On fields where brave men 66 die or do,"
In halls where rings the banquet's mirth,
Where mourners weep, where lovers woo,
From throne to cottage-hearth?

What sweet tears dim the eye unshed, What wild vows falter on the tongue, When "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," Or "Auld Lang Syne" is sung!

Pure hopes, that lift the soul above,
Come with his Cotter's hymn of praise,
And dreams of youth, and truth, and love,
With "Logan's" banks and braes.

And when he breathes his master-lay
Of Alloway's witch-haunted wall,

All passions in our frames of clay
Come thronging at his call.

Imagination's world of air,

And our own world, its gloom and glee,

Wit, pathos, poetry, are there,

And death's sublimity.

BURNS.

And Burns-though brief the race he ran,

Though rough and dark the path he trod,
Lived-died-in form and soul a Man,
The image of his God.

Through care, and pain, and want, and woe,
With wounds that only death could heal,
Tortures-the poor alone can know,

The proud alone can feel;

He kept his honesty and truth,

His independent tongue and pen,

And moved, in manhood as in youth,

Pride of his fellow-men.

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Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong,

A hate of tyrant and of knave,

A love of right, a scorn of wrong,
Of coward and of slave;

A kind, true heart, a spirit high,

That could not fear and would not bow, Were written in his manly eye

And on his manly brow.

Praise to the bard! his words are driven,
Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown,
Where'er, beneath the sky of heaven,
The birds of fame have flown.