And some, the pride of Coila's plains,

Become thy friends.

"Thou canst not learn, nor can I show, To paint with Thompson's landscape glow, Or wake the bosom-melting throe,

With Shenstone's art,

Or pour with Gray, the moving flow
Warm on the heart.

"Yet all beneath the unrivalled rose, The lowly daisy sweetly blows;

Tho' large the forest's monarch throws
His army shade,

Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows,
Adown the glade.

"Then never murmur nor repine;
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine;
And trust me, not Potosi's mine,
Nor king's regard,

Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,
A rustic Bard.

"To give my counsels all in one, Thy tuneful flame still careful fan; Preserve the Dignity of Man,

With soul erect;

And trust, the Universal Plan

Will all protect.

"And wear thou this !"—she solemn said,

And bound the Holly round my head:

The polish'd leaves, and berries red,

Did rustling play;

And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

INSCRIBED TO R. A****, ESQ.

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,

I.

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;
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,

The lowly train in life's sequcster'd scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;

What A**** in a cottage would have been; Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween.

II.

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh,
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 homeward bend.

III

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' flichter in noise an' glee.

His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonily,

His clean 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 and his toil.
IV.

Belyve the elder bairns come drappin in,

At service out, amang the farmers roun';
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.

V.

Wi' joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet,
An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers;
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnoticed fleet;

The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view,
The mother wi' her needle an' her sheers,

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

VI.

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' O! be sure to fear the Lord alway!

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!"

VII.

But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same,
Tells how a neebor lad came 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;
With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;

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

VIII.

Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben;

A strappan youth; he takes the mother's eye, Blithe 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 an' laithfu', 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. IX.

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 Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,

'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,

In other's arms breathe out the tender tale,

X.

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!

XI.

But now the supper crowns their simple board!

The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food; The soup their only hawkie does afford,

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cud: The dame brings forth in complimental mood,

To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck fell, An' aft he's press'd, an' aft he ca's it good;

The frugal wifie garrulous will tell,

How 'thas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.

XII.

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 wearin 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.

XIII.

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

The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise,
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.
XIV.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;

Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage

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.
XV.

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 Heaven's command.

XVI.

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 teat,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still more dear;

While circling time moves round in an eternal spnere

XVII.

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.

XVIII.

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 Heaven the warm request, That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,