Pore owre the devil's pictur'd beuks;
Stake on a chance a farmer's stackyard,
An' cheat like ony unhang'd blackguard.
There's some exception, man an' woman;
But this is gentry's life in common.
By this, the sun was out o' sight,
An' darker gloaming brought the night.
The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone;
The kye stood routin i' the loan;
When up they gat, and shook their lugs,
Rejoiced they were nae men, but dogs;
An' each took aff his several way,
Resolved to meet some ither day.
Inscribed to J. B*********, Esq., Ayr.
THE simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough,
Learning his tuneful trade from every bough;
The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,
Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn bush
The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill,
Or deep-ton'd plovers, gray, wild-whistling o'er the hill
Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed,
To hardy independence bravely bred,
By early poverty to hardship steel'd,
And train'd to arms in stern Misfortune's field;
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
Or labor hard the panegyric close,
With all the venal soul of dedicating prose?
No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings,
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard,
Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward!
Still, if some patron's gen'rous care he trace,
Skill'd in the secret to bestow with grace;
When B********* befriends his humble name,
And hands the rustic stranger up to fame,
With heart-felt throes his grateful bosom swells,
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.
"Twas when the stacks get on their winter-hap, And thack and rape secure the toil-worn crap; Potato-bings are snugged up frae skaith Of coming Winter's biting, frosty breath; The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils, Unnumber'd buds an' flowers' delicious spoils, Seal'd up, with frugal care, in massive waxen piles, Are doom'd by man, that tyrant o'er the weak, The death o' devils smoor'd wi' brimstone reek; The thundering guns are heard on ev'ry side, The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide; The feather'd field-mates, bound by nature's tie, Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie: (What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds, And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds!) Nae mair the flow'r in field or meadow springs; Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings, Except, perhaps, the robin's whistling glee, Proud o' the height o' some bit half-land tree;
The hoary morns precede the sunny days,
Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noon-tide blaze,
While thick the gossamour waves wanton in the rays.
'Twas in that season, when a simple bard,
Unknown and poor-simplicity's reward;
Ae night, within the ancient burgh of Ayr,
By whim inspir'd, or haply press'd wi' care;
He left his bed, and took his wayward route,
And down by Simpson's* wheel'd the left about:
(Whether impell'd by all-directing Fate,
To witness what I after shall narrate;
Or whether, rapt in meditation high,
He wandered out, he knew not where nor why ;)
The drowsy Dungeon-clock† had number'd two,
And Wallace Tow'rt had sworn the fact was true:
The tide-swoln Firth, with sullen-sounding roar,
Through the still night dash'd hoarse along the shore
All else was hush'd as nature's closed e'e;
The silent moon shone high o'er tow'r and tree:
The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam,
Crept, gently-crusting, o'er the glittering stream -
When lo! on either hand the list'ning bard,
The clanging sugh of whistling winds he heard ;
Two dusky forms dart thro' the midnight air,
Swift as the Gos‡ drives on the wheeling hare;
Ane on th' Auld Brig his airy shape uprears,
The ither flutters o'er the rising piers:
Our warlock rhymer instantly descry'd
The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside.
(That bards are second-sighted is nae joke,
And ken the lingo o' the sp'ritual folk;
A noted tavern at the Auld Brig end. The two steeples The goshawk, or falcon.
Fays, Spunkies, Kelpies, a', they can explain them,
And ev'n the vera deils they brawly ken them.)
Auld Brig appear'd of ancient Pictish race,
The vera wrinkles Gothic in his face:
He seem'd as he wi' Time had warstl'd lang,
Yet teughly doure, he bade an unco bang.
New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat,
That he, at Lon'on, frae ane Adams, got;
In's hand five taper staves as smooth's a bead,
Wi' virls an' whirlygigums at the head.
The Goth was stalking round with anxious search,
Spying the time-worn flaws in ev'ry arch;
It chanc'd his new-come neebour took his e'e,
And e'en a vex'd and angry heart had he!
Wi' thieveless sneer to see his modish mien,
He, down the water, gives him this guid e'en:
I doubt na, frien', ye'll think ye're nae sheep-shank Ance ye were streekit o'er from bank to bank!
But gin ye be a brig as auld as me,
Tho' faith, that day I doubt ye'll never see;
There'll be, if that date come, I'll wad a boddle,
Some fewer whigmeleeries in your noddle.
Auld Vandal, ye but show your little mense, Just much about it wi' your scanty sense; Will your poor, narrow foot-path of a street, Where twa wheelbarrows tremble when they meet, Your ruin'd, formless bulk o' stane an' lime,
Compare wi' bonie Brigs o' modern time?
There's men o' taste would take the Duckat stream,"
* A noted ford just above the Auld Brig.
Tho' they should cast the very sark and swim,
Ere they would grate their feelings wi' the view
O' sic an ugly, Gothic hulk as you.
Conceited gowk! puff'd up wi' windy pride.
This mony a year I've stood the flood an' tide;
An' tho' wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn,
I'll be a Brig, when ye're a shapeless cairn!
As yet ye little ken about the matter,
But twa-three winters will inform you better.
When heavy, dark, continu'd a'-day rains,
Wi' deep'ning deluges o'erflow the plains;
When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil,
Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil,
Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course,
Or haunted Garpal* draws his feeble source,
Arous'd by blust'ring winds an' spotting thowes,
In many a torrent down his sna'broo rowes,
While crashing ice, borne on the roaring speat,
Sweeps dams, an' mills, an' brigs, a' to the gate;
And from Glenbuck,f down to the Ratton-key,‡
Auld Ayr is just one lengthen'd, tumbling sea;
Then down ye'll hurl - deil nor ye never rise!
And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring skies:
A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost,
That Architecture's noble art is lost!
Fine Architecture! trowth, I needs must say't o't! The L-d be thankit that we've tint the gate o't!
* The banks of Garpal Water is one of the few places in the West of Scotland, where those fancy-scaring beings, known by the name of Ghaists, still continue pertinaciously to inhabit.
†The source of the river Ayr. A small landing-place above the large key.
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