WINTER.

A DIRGE.

THE wintery west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;

Or the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:

While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae ;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.

"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"
The joyless winter-day,

Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:

The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join :

The leafless trees my fancy please,

Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Pow'r Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,

Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,

Because they are Thy will!

Then all I want (Oh! do thou grant

This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign.

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.
INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ.,2 OF AYR.

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,

The short but simple annals of the Poor.-Gray.

My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end :

My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise :

1 Dr. Young.-R. B.

2 Mr. Aiken was a "writer" in Ayr; Gilbert Burns affectionately notices him in a letter to Currie, as a man of worth and taste, and warm affections, and who eagerly spread among his friends the merits of the new Poet.

To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,

The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween.
November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;1
The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher thro',
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin3 noise an' glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnily,

His clane hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,

An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil.

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, amang the farmers roun';5
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neebor town:

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown,
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
Wi' joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet,

An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers:
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnoticed fleet;
Each tells the uncos" that he sees or hears ;
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;

1 Rushing sound. 2 Stagger. 3 Fluttering. 4 By and by. 5 Although the "Cotter," in the Saturday Night, is an exact copy of my father in his manners, his family devotions, and exhortations, yet the other parts of the description do not apply to our family. None of us ever were At service out amang the neebors roun. Instead of our depositing our "sair-won penny fee" with our parents, my father laboured hard, and lived with the most rigid economy, that he might be able to keep his children at home.-Gilbert Burns to Dr. Currie. Oct. 24, 1800. 7 News.

6 Cautious.

Anticipation forward points the view.

The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears,

Gars' auld claes look amaist as weel's the new;
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

Their master's an' their mistress's command,
The younkers a' are warned to obey;
An' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand,
An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play :
An', oh! be sure to fear the Lord alway,

66

An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night! Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and assisting might: They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!" But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; Wi'heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, While Jenny hafflins3 is afraid to speak;

Weel pleas'd the mother hears, it's nae wild worthless rake.

Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben;

A strappan youth; he takes the mother's eye;
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en;

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,
But, blate and laithfu',6 scarce can weel behave;
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy

What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.?

O happy love! where love like this is found!
O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I've paced much this weary, mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare-
"If Heav'n a draught of heav'nly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,

'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning
gale!"

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart-
A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth!
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd ?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child?
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild!

But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food:
The soupe their only hawkie1 does afford,
That 'yont the hallan2 snugly chows her cood;
The dame brings forth in complimental mood,
To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd3 kebbuck, fell,
An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid;

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell

4

How 'twas a towmond" auld, sin' lint was i' the bell

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride :
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare ;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He waless a portion with judicious care;

And "Let us worship God !" he says, with solemn air.

66

They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:
Perhaps Dundee's" wild warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive" Martyrs," worthy of the name;
Or noble "Elgin" beets the heav'nward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays :
Compar'd with these, Italian thrills are tame;

The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ;
Or how the royal Bard did groaning lie

1 Cow.

2 Partition wall.
5 A twelvemonth.
7 Grey locks.

3 Well-saved.

6 Since the flax was in flower.
8 Chooses.

4 Cheese.

Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;

Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heav'n the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay His head:
How His first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,"

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand;

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heav'n's command.

ניי

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,'
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still more dear;

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method, and of art,
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart!
The Pow'r, incens'd, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul;
And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol.

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest :

The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request,
That He, who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride;
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them, and for their little ones provide ;
But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.
1 Pope's "Windsor Forest."-R. B.