TO JOHN TAYLOR.
WITH Pegasus upon a day,
Apollo weary flying,
Through frosty hills the journey lay,
On foot the way was plying.
Poor slip-shod giddy Pegasus
Was but a sorry walker;
To Vulcan then Apollo goes,
To get a frosty calker.
Obliging Vulcan fell to work,
Threw by his coat and bonnet,
And did Sol's business in a crack;
Sol paid him with a sonnet.
Ye Vulcan's sons of Wanlockhead,
Pity my sad disaster;
My Pegasus is poorly shod-
I'll pay you like my master.
INSCRIBED TO CHARLES JAMES FOX.
How Wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite;
How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white;
How Genius, the illustrious father of Fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction-
I sing if these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle.
But now for a Patron, whose name and whose glory At once may illustrate and honour my story.
Thou first of our orators, first of our wits,
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits;
With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong;
With passions so potent, and fancies so bright,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right:
A sorry, poor misbegot son of the Muses,
For using thy name offers fifty excuses.
On his one ruling passion Sir Pope hugely labours,
That, like th' old Hebrew walking switch, eats up its
Mankind are his show-box-a friend, would you know him?
Pull the string, ruling passion the picture will show him.
What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system,
One trifling particular, truth, should have miss'd him;
For, spite of his fine theoretic positions,
Mankind is a science defies definitions.
Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe,
And think human nature they truly describe;
Have you found this, or t'other! there's more in the wind,
As by one drunken fellow his comrades you'll find.
But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan,
In the make of that wonderful creature call'd man,
No two virtues, whatever relation they claim,
Nor even two different shades of the same,
Though like as was ever twin-brother to brother,
Possessing the one shall imply you've the other.
But truce with abstraction and truce with the Muse,
Whose rhymes you'll perhaps, sir, ne'er deign to peruse:
Will you leave your justings, your jars, and your quarrels,
Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels.
My much-honoured Patron, believe your poor Poet,
Your courage much more than your prudence you shew it:
In vain with Squire Billy for laurels you struggle,
He'll have them by fair trade, if not he will smuggle;
Not cabinets even of kings would conceal 'em,
He'd up the back-stairs and BE CERTAIN TO steal 'em!
Then feats like Squire Billy's you ne'er can achieve 'em,
It is not, outdo him-the task is, out-thieve him!
FAIR the face of orient day,
Fair the tints of op'ning rose;
But fairer still my Delia dawns,
More lovely far her beauty shews.
Sweet the lark's wild warbled lay,
Sweet the tinkling rill to hear;
But, Delia, more delightful still,
Steal thine accents on mine ear.
The flower-enamoured busy bee
The rosy banquet loves to sip;
Sweet the streamlet's limpid lapse
To the sun-browned Arab's lip.
But, Delia, on thy balmy lips
Let me, no fragrant insect, rove;
O let me steal one liquid kiss,
For, oh my soul is parched with love!
ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE LIMP BY ME,
WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT.
INHUMAN man! curse on thy barb'rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;
May never pity soothe thee with aʼsigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!
Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field!
The bitter little that of life remains:
No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.
Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest,
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed!
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head,
The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest.
Oft as by winding Nith I, musing, wait
The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn,
I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn,
And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.
LETTER TO JAMES TENNANT OF GLENCONNER.
AULD Comrade dear, and brither sinner,
How's a' the folk about Glenconner?
How do you, this blae eastlin wind,
That's like to blaw a body blind?
For me, my faculties are frozen,
And ilka member nearly dozen'd.
I've sent you here, by Johnnie Simpson,
Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on;
Sunith, wi' his sympathetic feeling,
And Reid, to common-sense appealing.
Philosophers have fought and wrangled,
And meikle Greek and Latin mangled,
Till, wi' their logic jargon tir'd,
And in the depths of science mir'd,
To common-sense they now appeal,
What wives and wabsters see and feel.
But, hark ye, friend! I charge you strictly,
Peruse them, and return them quickly,
For now I'm grown sae VERA douce,
I pray and ponder butt the house;
My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin',
Perusing Bunyan, Brown, and Boston;
Till, by and by, if I haud on,
I'll grunt a real gospel groan:
Already I begin to try it,
To cast my e'en up like a pyet
When by the gun she tumbles o'er,
Flutt'ring and gasping in her gore:
Sae shortly you shall see me bright,
A burning and a shining light.
My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen,
The ace and wale o' honest men:
When bending down wi' auld grey hairs,
Beneath the load of years and cares,
May He who made him still support him,
And views beyond the grave comfort him;
His worthy fam'ly far and near,
God bless them a' wi' grace and gear!
My auld schoolfellow, preacher Willie,
The manly tar, my mason Billie,
And Auchinbay, I wish him joy;
If he's a parent-lass, or boy-
May he be dad, and Meg the mither,
Just five-and-forty years thegither!
And no forgetting wabster Charlie,
I'm told he offers very fairly.
And AYE remember singing Sannock,
Wi' hale breeks, saxpence, and a bannock;
And next my auld acquaintance Nancy,
Since she is fitted to her fancy;
And her kind stars hae airted till her
A good chiel wi' a pickle siller.
My kindest, best respects I sen' it,
To cousin Kate, and sister Janet;
Tell them, frae me, wi' chiels be cautious,
For, faith, they'll aiblins fin them fashious.
And lastly, Jamie, for yoursel',
lads possibly [troublesome
Sae I conclude, and quat my chanter,
Yours, saint or sinner, ROB THE RANTER.
ADDRESS TO THE TOOTHACHE.
My ban upon thy venom'd stang,
That shoots my tortur'd gums alang;
And through my lugs gies mony a twang,
Wi' gnawing vengeance;
Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang,
Like racking engines!
When fevers burn, or ague freezes,
Rheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes ;
Our neighbour's sympathy may ease us,
Wi' pitying moan;
But thee-thou worst o' a' diseases,
Aye mocks our groan!
O' a' the num'rous human dools,
Ill har'sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools,
Or worthy friends rak'd i' the mools,
Sad sight to see!
THE KIRK'S ALARM.
ORTHODOX, Orthodox,
Wha believe in John Knox,
Let me sound an alarm to your conscience;
There's a heretic blast
Has been blawn in the wast,
That what is not sense must be nonsense.
Dr Mac, Dr Mac,
You should stretch on a rack,
To strike evil doers wi' terror;
To join faith and sense
Upon any pretence
Is heretic HORRIBLE error.
Town of Ayr, town of Ayr,
It was mad, I declare,
To meddle wi' mischief a-brewing;
Provost John is still deaf
To the church's relief,
And orator Bob is its ruin.
Singet Sawney, Singet Sawney,
Are ye huirding the penny,
Unconscious what evils await;
Wi' a jump, yell, and howl,
Alarm every soul,
For the foul thief is just at your gate.
Daddy Auld, Daddy Auld,
There's a tod in the fauld,
A tod meikle waur than the clerk;
Though ye downa do skaith,
Ye'll be in at the death,
And if ye canna bite, ye may bark.
Davie Bluster, Davie Bluster,
For a saint if ye muster,
The corps is no nice of recruits;
Yet to worth lets be just,
Royal blood ye might boast,
If the ass was the king of the brutes.
Jamy Goose, Jamy Goose,
Ye hae made but toom roose,
(Robert Aiken)
(Rev. Alex. Moodie) hoarding
(Rev. Mr Auld) fox, fold
much worse
cannot harm
(Mr Young, Cumnock) empty praise
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