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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,

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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!

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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.

O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide,

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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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14

The pleasant season did my heart employ:
My old remembrances went from me wholly;
And all the ways of men, so vain and melan-
choly.

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no further go,
As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low;
To me that morning did it happen so;

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And fears and fancies thick upon me came; Dim sadness-and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name.

28

I heard the skylark warbling in the sky;
And I bethought me of the playful hare:
Even such a happy Child of earth am I;
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;
Far from the world I walk, and from all care;
But there may come another day to me—
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty. 35

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
As if life's business were a summer mood;
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good;
But how can He expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no heed

at all?

42

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride; Of Him who walked in glory and in joy Following his plough, along the mountain-side: By our own spirits are we deified:

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,
A leading from above, a something given,
Yet it befell, that, in this lonely place,
When I with these untoward thoughts had

striven,

Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven

I saw a Man before me unawares:

The oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray

49

hairs.

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As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couched on the bald top of an eminence;
Wonder to all who do the same espy,
By what means it could thither come, and

whence;

So that it seems a thing endued with sense: Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself; 63

Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead,
Nor all asleep, in his extreme old age:
His body was bent double, feet and head
Coming together in life's pilgrimage;

As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage
Of sickness felt by him in times long past,

A more than human weight upon his frame had

cast.

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Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face,
Upon a long gray staff of shaven wood:
And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,
Upon the margin of that moorish flood
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood,
That heareth not the loud winds when they call
And moveth all together, if it move at all.

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond
Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look
Upon the muddy water, which he conned,
As if he had been reading in a book:
And now a stranger's privilege I took;
And, drawing to his side, to him did say,
This morning gives us promise of a glorious
day."

A gentle answer did the old Man make,

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In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew: And him with further words I thus bespake, "What occupation do you there pursue? This is a lonesome place for one like you." Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid

eyes,

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