O that my een were flowing burns! Her darling cubs' undoing! That I might greet, that I might cry, While Tories fall, while Tories fly, And furious Whigs pursuing! What Whig but melts for good Sir James ? Friend, patron, benefactor! Not Pulteney's wealth can Pulteney save! Thou, Pitt, shalt rue this overthrow; And Melville melt in wailing! How Fox and Sheridan rejoice! And Burke shall sing, O Prince, arise, Thy power is all-prevailing! For your poor friend, the Bard, afar He only hears and sees the war, A cool spectator purely ! So, when the storm the forest rends, The robin in the hedge descends, And sober chirps securely. EPISTLE TO MAJOR LOGAN.1 HAIL, thairm-inspirin', rattlin' Willie! We never heed, But tak it like the unback'd filly, Proud o' her speed. When idly goavan3 whyles we saunter, Uphill, down brae, till some mischanter.5 Some black bog-hole, Arrests us, then the scathe an' banter We're forced to thole." 1 Major Logan was a skilful player on the violin. • Lively. 3 Walking without an object. 5 Accident. 2 Fiddle-string. 7 To bear. Hale be your heart! Hale be your fiddle! Until you on a crummock driddle1 A grey-hair'd carl. Come wealth, come poortith, late or soon, A fifth or mair, The melancholious, lazie croon O' cankrie care. May still your life from day to day Harmonious flow: A sweeping, kindling, bauld strathspey- A blessing on the cheery gang But as the clegs2 o' feeling stang3 Are wise or fool. 4 My hand-waled curse keep hard in chase Their tuneless hearts! May fire-side discords jar a base To a their parts! But come, your hand, my careless brither, About the matter, We cheek for chow shall jog thegither, We've faults and failings-granted clearly, 1 Hobble on a stick. 2 Gadflies. 3 Sting. • Miserly. 5 Doubt. Eve's bonny squad priests wyte' them sheerly But still, but still, I like them dearly God bless them a'! Ochon for poor Castalian drinkers, Hae put me hyte,2 And gart me weet my waukrife winkers,3 Wi' girnin spite. But by yon moon !-and that's high swearin'- An' by her een wha was a dear ane! I'll ne'er forget; I hope to gie the jads1 a clearin' In fair play yet. My loss I mourn, but not repent it, Some cantraip hour, By some sweet elf I'll yet be dinted, Then, vive l'amour! Faites mes baissemains respectueuses, An' honest Lucky; no to roose ye, Ye may be proud, That sic a couple fate allows ye To grace your blood. Nae mair at present can I measure, An' trowth my rhymin' ware's nae treasure; Be't light, be't dark, Sir Bard will do himsel' the pleasure Mossgiel, 30th October, 1786. To call at Park. ROBERT BURNS. 1 Blame. 2 Frantic. 4 Jades. 5 Lost. 3 Wet my sleepless eyes. 6 Charmed. EPITAPH ON THE POET'S DAUGHTER.1 HERE lies a rose, a budding rose, Whose innocence did sweets disclose EPITAPH ON GABRIEL RICHARDSON.2 Here Brewer Gabriel's fire's extinct, He's blest-if, as he brew'd, he drink EPISTLE TO HUGH PARKER.3 In this strange land, this uncouth clime, Where words ne'er crost the Muse's heckles,* A land that prose did never view it, Except when drunk he stachert through it; 1 These lines are said to have been written by Burns on the loss of his daughter, who died in the autumn of 1795, and of whom he thus speaks in his letter to Mrs. Dunlop, from Dumfries, January 31, 1796: "These many months you have been two packets in my debt-what sin of ignorance I have committed against so highly valued a friend I am utterly at a loss to guess. Alas! madam, ill can I afford, at this time, to be deprived of any of the small remnant of my pleasures. I have lately drunk deep of the cup of affliction. The autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling child, and that at a distance too, and so rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay the last duties to her. I had scarcely begun to recover from that shock when I became myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and long the die spun doubtful; until, after many weeks of sick bed, it seems to have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl across my room, and once indeed have been before my own door in the street. "When pleasure fascinates the mental sight, Religion hails the drear, the untried night, That shuts, for ever shuts, life's doubtful day." 2 A brewer in Dumfries. 3 A merchant of Kilmarnock, and a generous patron of Burns at the beginning of his poetical career. * Instrument for dressing flax. Here, ambush'd by the chimla1 cheek, Dowie2 she saunters down Nithside, Thou bure the Bard through many a shire? ROBERT BURNS. 1 Fire-place. 2 Weary. 3 Raise. |