And safe beneath the shady thorn My life was ance that careless stream, But love, wi' unrelenting beam, Has scorched my fountains dry. The little floweret's peaceful lot, Was mine; till love has o'er me past, And now beneath the withering blast The wakened laverock warbling springs, In morning's rosy eye. As little recked I sorrow's power, O' witching love, in luckless hour, O had my fate been Greenland snows, Or Afric's burning zone, Wi' man and nature leagued my foes, So Peggy ne'er I'd known! The wretch whase doom is, "hope nae mair,” August, 1795. O BONNY WAS YON ROSY BRIER. "Written on the blank leaf of a copy of the last edition of my Poems, presented to the lady whom, in so many fictitious reveries of passion, but with the most ardent sentiments of real friendship, I have so often sung under the name of Chloris.". Mr. Thomson, August, 1795. O BONNY was yon rosy brier Burns to That blooms sae far frae haunt o' man; And bonny she, and ah! how dear! It shaded frae the e'enin' sun. Yon rose-buds in the morning dew, They witnessed in their shade yestreen. All in its rude and prickly bower, That crimson rose, how sweet and fair! But love is far a sweeter flower Amid life's thorny path o' care. The pathless wild and wimpling burn, winding brook And I the world, nor wish, nor scorn, INSCRIPTION FOR AN ALTAR TO INDEPENDENCE, AT KERROUGHTREE, THE SEAT OF MR. HERON. Assigned by Dr. Currie to the summer of 1795. THOU of an independent mind, With soul resolved, with soul resigned; Prepared Power's proudest frown to brave, Thy own reproach alone dost fear, THE DUKE OF QUEENSBERRY. Allusion has several times been made to the Duke of Queensberry, as a personage held in hatred by the poet. The two following stanzas were probably a part of the election-ballad of 1790, but omitted from the copy sent by the author to Mr. Graham. How shall I sing Drumlanrig's Grace- Once great in martial story His forbears' virtues all contrasted The very name of Douglas blasted Hate, envy, oft the Douglas bore; ? And sunk them in contempt; ancestors Follies and crimes have stained the name, But, Queensberry, thine the virgin claim, From aught that's good exempt. VERSES ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WOODS NEAR DRUMLANRIG. In 1795, the Duke of Queensberry stripped his domains of Drumlanrig, in Dumfriesshire, and Neidpath, in Peeblesshire, of all the wood fit for being cut, in order to furnish a dowry for the Countess of Yarmouth, whom he supposed to be his daughter, and to whom, by a singular piece of good-fortune on her part, Mr. George Selwyn, the celebrated wit, also left a fortune, under the same (probably equally mistaken) impression. It fell to the lot of Wordsworth to avenge on the "degenerate Douglas" his leaving old Neidpath beggared and outraged." The vindication of nature in the case of Drumlanrig became a pleasing duty to Burns. In one of his rides, he inscribed the following verses on the back of a window-shutter in an inn or toll-house near the scene of the devastations. SO As on the banks o' wandering Nith, Ae smiling simmer-morn I strayed, And traced its bonny howes and haughs,1 1 hollows Where linties sang and lambkins played, linnets I sat me down upon a craig, And drank my fill o' fancy's dream ; When, from the eddying deep below, 1 Low lands on the margin of a river (the New England "interval.") |