That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling,
smooth!

Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,

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

90

But now the supper crowns their simple board, The healsome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food; The soupe their only hawkie does afford,

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck, fell;

And aft he 's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid;

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell,

How 't was 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 reverently is laid aside,

99

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

And "Let us worship God!" he says with solemn

air.

108

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 heavenward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;

The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 117

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

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. 126

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,—
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in heaven 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 banishèd,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,

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

135

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.

144

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,

Devotion's every grace, except the heart!
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But, haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul;

And in His Book of Life the inmates poor en

roll.

153

Then homeward all take off their several way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:

The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flowery 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.

162

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur
springs,

That makes her loved at home, revered
abroad;

Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
"An honest man's the noblest work of God!"
And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road,

The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp?—a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of humankind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined! 171

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is
sent,

Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet
content!

And, O, may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,

A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved

isle.

180

O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide,

That streamed through Wallace's undaunted
heart;

Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
Or nobly die, the second glorious part,

(The patriot's God peculiarly thou art,
His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)

O never, never Scotia's realm desert;

But still the patriot and the patriot bard In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

1786.

189

Robert Burns.

RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE

THERE was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove

broods;

The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of

waters.

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;
The grass is bright with rain-drops;—on the

moors

The hare is running races in her mirth;
And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth

run.

I was a Traveller then upon the moor,

I saw the hare that raced about with joy;
I heard the woods and distant waters roar;
Or heard them not, as happy as a boy:

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