242

EPISTLE TO JAMES SMITH

"While ye are pleased to keep me hale,
I'll sit down o'er my scanty meal,
Be't water-brose, or muslin kail,1

Wi' cheerful face,

As lang's the Muses dinna fail

To say the grace."

An anxious e'e I never throws
Behint my lug, or by my nose;
I jouk beneath misfortune's blows
As weel's I may ;

2

Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose,
I'll rhyme away.

Oh ye douce folk, that live by rule,
Grave, tideless-blooded, calm and cool,
Compared wi' you-oh, fool, fool, fool!
How much unlike!

Your hearts are just a standing pool,

Your lives a dyke!

In

Nae hare-brained, sentimental traces,
your unlettered, nameless faces ;
In arioso trills and graces

Ye never stray,

Ye hum away.

But, gravissimo, solemn basses.

Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye're wise;
Nae ferly 3 though ye do despise

The hairum-scairum, ram-stam boys,

The rattling squad:

I see you upward cast your eyes

Ye ken the road.

1 Broth made without meat.
3 Wonder.

2 Stoop.

A WINTER NIGHT.

Whilst I-but I shall haud me there-
Wi' you I'll scarce gang onywhere:
Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair,

But quit my sang,

Content wi' you to mak' a pair,

Whare'er I gang.

243

Sullen.

A WINTER NIGHT.

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are.
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm!
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you,
From seasons such as these?-

Shakspere.

WHEN biting Boreas, fell and doure,1
Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r
When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r,
Far south the lift,

Dim-dark'ning thro' the flaky show'r,

Or whirling drift:

2

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns wi' snawy wreeths3 up-choked
Wild-eddying swirl,

Or through the mining outlet bocked,4

Down headlong hurl.

List'ning the doors and winnocks 5 rattle
I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle

O' winter war,

And thro' the drift, deep-lairing,7 sprattle,8

5 Windows.

Beneath a scar.

2 The sky. 3 Drifted heaps of snow.
6 Shivering. 7 Deep Wading.

4 Flung out. 8 Scramble.

244

A WINTER NIGHT.

Ilk happing1 bird, wee helpless thing!
That, in the merry months o' spring,
Delighted me to hear thee sing,

What comes o' thee?

2

Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing,
An' close thy e'e?

Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd,

Lone from your savage homes exil'd,

The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoil'd,

My heart forgets,

While pitiless the tempest wild

Sore on you beats.

Now Phoebe in her midnight reign,
Dark muffl'd, view'd the dreary plain;
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train,
Rose in my soul,

When on my ear this plaintiff strain,

Slow, solemn, stole

"Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!
And freeze thou bitter-biting frost!
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!
Not all your rage, as now united, shows.
More hard unkindness, unrelenting,
Vengeful malice, unrepenting,

Than heav'n-illumin'd man on brother man bestows
See stern Oppression's iron grip,

Or mad Ambition's gory hand,
Sending like blood-hounds from the slip,

Woe want and murder o'er a land!

Ev'n in the peaceful rural vale

Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale,
How pamper'd Luxury, Flatt'ry by her side,
The parasite empoisoning her ear,

With all the servile wretches in the rear,
Looks o'er proud property, extended wide;

I

1 Hopping,

2

Shivering

A WINTER NIGHT.

And eyes the simple rustic hind,

Whose toil upholds the glitt'ring show,

A creature of another kind,

Some coarser substance, unrefin'd

245

Plac'd for her lordly use thus far, thus vile below!
Where, where is love's fond tender throe,
With lordly Honour's lofty brow,

The pow'rs you proudly own?
Is there, beneath love's noble name,
Can harbour, dark, the selfish aim,
To bless himself alone!
Mark maiden-innocence a prey
To love-pretending snares,
This boasted Honour turns away,
Shunning soft pity's rising sway,

Regardless of the tears, and unavailing pray'rs!
Perhaps, this hour, in mis'ry's squalid nest
She strains your infant to her joyless breast,
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast
Oh ye! who, sunk in beds of down,

Feel not a want but what yourselves create,
Think for a moment, on his wretched fate,
Whom friends and fortune quite disown!
Ill-satisfied keen Nature's clam'rous call,
Stretched on his straw he lays himself to sleep.
While, through the ragged roof and chinky wall,
Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap!

Think on the dungeon's grim confine,
Where guilt and poor Misfortune pine!
Guilt, erring man, relenting view!
But shall thy legal rage pursue
The wretch already crushed low

By cruel fortune's undeservèd blow ?
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress,
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!

I heard nae mair, for chanticleer

Shook off the pouthery snaw,

And hailed the morning with a cheer,
A cottage rousing craw.

246 THE FARMER'S SALUTATION TO HIS MARE.

But deep this truth impressed my mind-
Through all His works abroad,
The heart, benevolent and kind,
The most resembles God.

THE AULD FARMER'S NEW-YEAR MORNING SALUTATION TO HIS AULD MARE MAGGIE,

ON GIVING HER THE ACCUSTOMED RIP OF CORN TO HANSEL IN THE NEW YEAR.

A GUID New Year I wish thee, Maggie!
Hae, there's a rip1 to thy auld baggie:
Though thou's howe-backit now and knaggie,
I've seen the day

Thou could hae gane like ony staggie.

Out owre the lay.3

Though now thou's dowie, stiff an' crazy,
An' thy auld hide's as white's a daisy,
I've seen thee dappl't, sleek and glaizie,
A bonny grey :

He should been tight that daur't to raize thee
Once in a day.

Thou ance was i' the foremost rank,
A filly buirdly, steeve, an' swank,5
An' set well down a shapely shank

As e'er tread yird;6

An' could hae flown out-ower a stank?

'A handful of corn in the stalks. 3 Lea.

5 Strong, active and stately.

Like onie bird.

2 Sunk in the back and sharp-boned

4 Spiritless.

6 Earth

7 Ditch or morass.