Here lies wha weel had won thy praise, For Matthew was a bright man.
If thou at friendship's sacred ca', Wad life itself resign, man; Thy sympathetic tear maun fa', For Matthew was a kind man.
If thou art staunch without a stain, Like the unchanging blue, man; This was a kinsman o' thy ain,
For Matthew was a true man.
If thou hast wit, and fun, and fire, And ne'er guid wine did fear, man This was thy billie, dam, and sire, For Matthew was a queer man.
If ony whiggish whingin sot,
To blame poor Matthew dare, man,
May dool and sorrow be his lot,
For Matthew was a rare man.
LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS,
ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING.
Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea:
Now Phœbus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.
Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle, in his noontide bow'r,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis mild wi' many a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest :
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.
Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae:
The meanest hind in fair Scotland,
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang.
I was the Queen o' bonnie France,
Where happy I hae been ;
Fu' lightly raise I in the morn,
As blithe lay down at e'en':
And I'm the sovereign of Scotland,
And mony a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands,
And never ending care.
But as for thee, thou false woman,
My sister and my fae,
Grim vengeance, yet, shall whet a sword
That thro' thy soul shall gae:
The weeping blood in woman's breast
Was never known to thee;
Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe
Frae woman's pitying e'e.
My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine ;
And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That neer wad blink on mine!
God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee;
And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, Remember him for me:
! soon, to me, may summer-suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn!
And in the narrow house o' death
Let winter round me rave;
And the next flow'rs that deck the spring, Bloom on my peaceful grave.
LATE crippled of an arm, and now a leg, About to beg a pass for leave to beg; Dull, listless, teas'd, dejected, and deprest, (Nature is adverse to a cripple's rest); Will generous Graham list to his poet's wail? (It soothes poor misery, hearkening to her tale),
And hear him curse the light he first survey'd, And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?
Thou, Nature, partial Nature, I arraign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain.
The lion and the bull thy care have found,
One shakes the forest, and one spurns the
ground:
Thon giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell,
Th' envenom'd wasp, victorious, guards his cell.
Thy minions, kings defend, control, devour,
In all th' omnipotence of rule and power.—
Foxes and statesmen, subtile wiles ensure ;
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure ;
Toads with their poison, doctors with their
drug,
[snug.
The priest and hedge-hog, in their robes are
Ev'n silly woman has her warlike arts, [darts.
Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and
But Oh! thou bitter step-mother and hard,
To thy poor, fenceless, naked child the Bard!
A thing unteachable in world's skill,
And half an idiot too, more helpless still.
No heels to bear him from the opening dun
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun;
No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn,
And those, alas! not Amalthea's horn:
No nerves olfactory, Mammon's trusty cur,
Clad in rich dulness' comfortable fur,
In naked feeling, and in aching pride,
He bears th' unbroken blast from every side:
Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart,
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.
Critics appall'd, I venture on the name,
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame;
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes;
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose..
His heart by causeless, wanton malice wrung, By blockheads' daring into madness stung; His well-won bays, than life itself more dear, By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must
Foil'd, bleeding, tortur'd, in the unequal strife,
The hapless poet flounders on through life,
Till fled each hope that once his bosom fired,
And fled each muse that glorious once inspired,
Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age,
Dead, even resentment, for his injured page,
He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's
rage!
So, by some hedge, the generous steed deceased,
For half-starv'd snarling curs a dainty feast ; By toil and famine wore to skin and bone., Lies senseless of each tugging bitch's son..
O dulness! portion of the truly blest!
Calm shelter'd haven of eternal rest!
Thy sons ne'er madden in the fierce extremes
If mantling high she fills the golden cup,
Of fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams.
Conscious the bounteous meed they well de-
With sober selfish ease they sip it up; [serve,
They only wonder some folks' do not starve.
The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog,
And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog.
When disappointment snaps the clue of hope,
And thro' disastrous night they darkling grope,
With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear,
And just conclude that fools are fortune's care.'
So, heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks,
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox.
Not so the idle muses' mad-cap train, Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain;
In equanimity they never dwell,
By turns in soaring heaven, or vaulted hell.
I dread thee, fate, relentless and severe,
With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear 5
Already one strong hold of hope is lost,
Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust ;-
(Fled, like the sun eclips'd as noon appears,
And left us darkling in a world of tears):
O! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish pray'r!
Fintra, my other stay, long bless and spare!
Thro' a long life his hopes and wishes crown, And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down! May bliss domestic smooth his private path; Give energy to life; and soothe his latest breath, With many a filial tear circling the bed of death!
LAMENT FOR JAMES EARL OF GLENCAIRN.
THE wind blew hollow frae the hills,
By fits the sun's departing beam Look'd on the fading yellow woods
That wav'd o'er Lugar's winding stream: Beneath a craigy steep, a bard,
Laden with years and meikle pain, In loud lament bewail'd his lord,
Whom death had all untimely ta'en.
He lean'd him to an ancient aik,
Whose trunk was mould'ring down with
years;
His locks were bleached white wi' time,
His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears!
And as he touch'd his trembling harp,
And as he tun'd his doleful sang,
The winds, lamenting thro' their caves,
To echo bore the notes alang.
"Ye scatter'd birds that faintly sing,
The relics of the vernal quire!
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds
The honours of the aged year!
A few short months, and glad and gay,
Again ye'll charm the ear and e'e;
But nocht in all revolving time
Can gladness bring again to me.
"I am a bending aged tree,
That long has stood the wind and rain; But now has come a cruel blast,
And my last hald of earth is gane :
Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring,
Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom;
But I maun lie before the storm,
And ithers plant them in my room.
"I've seen sae mony changefu' years,
On earth I am a stranger grown ;
I wander in the ways of men,
Alike unknowing and unknown:
Unheard, unpitied, unrelieved,
I bear alane my lade o' care,
For silent, low, on beds of dust,
Lie a' that would my sorrows share
"And last, (the sum of a' my griefs)!
My noble master lies in clay;
The flow'r amang our barons bold,
His country's pride, his country's stay: In weary being now I pine,
For a' the life of life is dead,
And hope has left my aged ken,
On forward wing for ever fled.
"Awake thy last sad voice, my harp
The voice of woe and wild despair! Awake, resound thy latest lay,
Then sleep in silence evermair! And thou, my last, best, only friend, That fillest an untimely tomb, Accept this tribute from the bard
Thou brought from fortune's mirkest gloom
"In poverty's low barren vale,
Thick mists, obscure, involv'd me round; Tho' oft I turn'd the wistful eye,
Nae ray of fame was to be found:
Thou found'st me like the morning sun
That melts the fogs in limpid air,
The friendless bard and rustic song,
Became alike thy fostering care.
"O! why has worth so short a date?
While villains ripen grey with time!
Must thou, the noble, gen'rous, great,
Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime !
Why did I live to see that day?
A day to me so full of woe!
O! had I met the mortal shaft
Which laid my benefactor low!
"The bridegroom may forget the bride Was made his wedded wife yestreen; The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been ; The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee; But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And a' that thou hast done for me!"
SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEFORD, OF WHITEFORD, BART. WITH THE FOREGOING POEM.
THOU, who thy honour as thy God rever'st, Who, save thy mind's reproach, nought earthly fear'st,
To thee this votive offering I impart, "The tearful tribute of a broken heart." The friend thou valued'st, I the patron lov'd; His worth, his honour, all the world approv'd. We'll mourn till we too go as he is gone, And tread the dreary path to that dark world unknown.
Of Brownyis and of Bogilis full is this Buke. Gawin Douglas
WHEN chapman billies leave the street, And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' gettin' fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter, As he frae Ayr ae night did canter, (Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses, For honest men and bonny lasses).
O Tam! had'st thou but been sae wise, As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice! She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum; That frae November till October, Ae market-day thou was na sober; That ilka melder, wi' the miller, Thou sat as lang as thou had siller; That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on, The smith and thee gat roaring fou on; That at the L-d's house, ev'n on Sunday, Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday. She prophesy'd, that late or soon,
Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon;
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen'd sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises !
But to our tale: Ae market night,
Tam had got planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony ;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter;
And aye the ale was growing better:
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi' favours, secret, sweet, and precious;
The souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.
Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drown'd himself amang the nappy;
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tum was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious!
But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed! Or like the snow-falls in the river, A moment white-then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.-
Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That bour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in,
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattlin' showers rose on the blast:
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd;
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd;
That night, a child might understand,
The deil had business on his hand.
Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg-
A better never lifted leg-
Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet;
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet;
Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry—
By this time he was cross the ford,
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd;
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Whare drunken Charlie brak 's neck-bane;
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn,
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Whare Mungo's mither hanged hersel.-
Before him Don pours all his floods;
The doubling storm roars thro' the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
Near and more near the thunders roll;
When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze;
Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing,
And loud resounded mirth and dancing-
Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquebae we'll face the devil.—
The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he cared na deils a boddle.
But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,
She ventured forward on the light;
And, vow! Tum saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;
Nae cotillion brent new frae France,
But hornpipes. jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the cast,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw'd his pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.-
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