SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD, BART. OF WHITEFOORD, WITH THE FOREGOING POEM.
THOU, who thy honour as thy God rever'st,
Who, save thy mind's reproach, naught earthly fear'st,
To thee this votive offering I impart,
The tearful tribute of a broken heart.
The friend thou valued'st, I the patron loved;
His worth, his honour, all the world approved.
We'll mourn till we too go as he has gone,
And tread the dreary path to that dark world unknown.
ADDRESS TO THE SHADE OF THOMSON,
ON CROWNING HIS BUST AT EDNAM, ROXBURGHSHIRE, WITH
BAYS.
WHILE virgin Spring, by Eden's flood,
Unfolds her tender mantle green,
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,
Or tunes Eolian strains between :
While Summer with a matron grace
Retreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade,
Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade:
While Autumn, benefactor kind,
By Tweed erects his aged head,
And sees, with self-approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed:
While maniac Winter rages o'er
The hills whence classic Yarrow flows,
Rousing the turbid torrent's roar,
Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows:
So long, sweet poet of the year!
Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won;
While Scotia, with exulting tear,
Proclaims that Thomson was her son.
TO MR MAXWELL OF TERRAUGHTY, ON HIS
HEALTH to the Maxwells' veteran chief!
Health, aye unsoured by care or grief:
Inspired, I turned Fate's sybil leaf
This natal morn;
I see thy life is stuff o' prief,
Scarce quite half worn.
This day thou metes threescore eleven,
And I can tell, that bounteous Heaven
(The second-sight, ye ken, is given
To ilka Poet)
On thee a tack o' seven times seven
Will yet bestow it.
If envious buckies view wi' sorrow
Thy lengthened days on this blest morrow,
May desolation's lang-teethed harrow,
Nine miles an hour,
Rake them like Sodom and Gomorrah,
In brunstane stoure!
But for thy friends, and they are mony,
Baith honest men and lasses bonnie,
May couthie Fortune, kind and cannie,
In social glee,
Wi' mornings blythe, and e'enings funny,
Bless them and thee!
Farewell, auld birkie! GRACE be near ye,
And then NAE EVIL daurs To steer ye:
Your friends aye love, your faes aye fear ye;
For me, shame fa' me,
If neist my heart I dinna wear ye
While BURNS they ca' me!
FOURTH EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY.
I CALL no goddess to inspire my strains,
A fabled Muse may suit a bard that feigns;
Friend of my life! my ardent spirit burns,
And all the tribute of my heart returns,
For boons accorded, goodness ever new,
The gift still dearer, as the giver, you.
Thou orb of day! thou other paler light!
And all ye many sparkling stars of night;
If aught that giver from my mind efface,
If I that giver's bounty e'er disgrace;
Then roll to me, along your wandering spheres,
Only to number out a villain's years!
SWEET Sensibility, how charming,
Thou, my friend, canst truly tell;
But how Distress, with horrors arming,
Thou, alas! hast known too well!
Fairest Flower, behold the lily,
Blooming in the sunny ray;
Let the blast sweep o'er the valley,
See it prostrate on the clay.
Hear the wood-lark charm the forest,
Telling o'er his little joys;
But, alas! a prey the surest
To each pirate of the skies.
Dearly bought the hidden treasure
Finer feelings can bestow :
Cords that vibrate sweetest pleasure
Thrill the deepest notes of wo.
AN OCCASIONAL ADDRESS SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HER
BENEFIT NIGHT, NOV. 26, 1792.
WHILE Europe's eye is fixed on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of state must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
First, in the sexes' intermixed connection,
One sacred Right of Woman is-Protection.
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate,
Helpless, must fall before the blasts of fate,
Sunk on the earth, defaced its lovely form,
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm.
Our second Right-but needless here is caution,
To keep that Right inviolate's the fashion,
Each man of sense has it so full before him,
He'd die before he'd wrong it 'tis Decorum.
There was, indeed, in far less polished days,
A time when rough rude man had naughty ways;
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot,
Nay, even thus invade a lady's quiet.
Now, thank our stars! these Gothic times are fled;
Now, well-bred men-and you are all well-bred-
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers)
Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor inanners.
For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest,
That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest,
Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration
Most humbly own-'tis dear, dear Admiration!
In that blest sphere alone we live and move;
There taste that life of life-immortal love.
Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs,
'Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares-
When awful Beauty joins with all her charms,
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms?
But truce with kings and truce with constitutions,
With bloody armaments and revolutions,
Let majesty your first attention summon,
Ah! sa ira! THE MAJESTY OF WOMAN!
TO MISS FONTENELLE,
ON SEEING HER IN A FAVOURITE CHARACTER.
SWEET naïveté of feature,
Simple, wild, enchanting elf,
Not to thee, but thanks to Nature,
Thou art acting but thyself.
Wert thou awkward, stiff, affected,
Spurning nature, torturing art;
Loves and graces all rejected,
Then indeed thou'dst act a part.
WRITTEN ON THE 25TH JANUARY 1793, THE BIRTHDAY OF THE
AUTHOR, ON HEARING A THRUSH SING IN A MORNING WALK.
SING on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain;
See aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign,
At thy blythe carol clears his furrowed brow.
So in lone Poverty's dominion drear,
Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart;
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part,
Nor asks if they bring ought to hope or fear.
I thank thee, Author of this opening day!
Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies!
Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys,
What wealth could never give nor take away!
Yet come, thou child of poverty and care,
The mite high Heaven bestowed, that mite with thee I'll share
EPITAPH ON A LAP-DOG.
IN wood and wild, ye warbling throng,
Your heavy loss deplore!
Now half extinct your powers of song,
Sweet Echo is no more.
Ye jarring, screeching things around,
Scream your discordant joys!
Now half your din of tuneless song
With Echo silent lies.
ON MRS RIDDEL'S BIRTHDAY, 4TH NOVEMBER 1798.
OLD Winter, with his frosty beard,
Thus once to Jove his prayer preferred:
"What have I done of all the year,
To bear this hated doom severe ?
My cheerless suns no pleasure know;
Night's horrid car drags, dreary slow;
My dismal months no joys are crowning,
But spleeny English, hanging, drowning.
"Now, Jove, for once be mighty civil,
To counterbalance all this evil;
Give me, and I've no more to say,
Give me Maria's natal-day!
That brilliant gift shall so enrich me,
Spring, summer, autumn, cannot match me.'
""Tis done!" says Jove; so ends my story,
And Winter once rejoiced in glory.
ON A LADY FAMED FOR HER CAPRICE.
How cold is that bosom which folly once fired,
How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glistened! How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired,
How dull is that ear which to flattery so listened!
If sorrow and anguish their exit await,
From friendship and dearest affection removed; How doubly severer, Eliza, thy fate,
Thou diedst unwept, as thou livest unloved.
Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you;
So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear:
But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true,
And flowers let us cull for Eliza's cold bier.
We'll search through the garden for each silly flower,
We'll roam through the forrest for each idle weed;
But chiefly the nettle, so typical, shower,
For none e'er approached her but rued the rash deed.
We'll sculpture the marble, we'll measure the lay;
Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre;
There keen Indignation shall dart on her prey,
Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire.
HERE lies, now a prey to insulting neglect,
What once was a butterfly gay in life's beam:
Want only of wisdom denied her respect,
Want only of goodness denied her esteem.
EPISTLE FROM ESOPUS TO MARIA. FROM those drear solitudes and frowsy cells, Where infamy with sad repentance dwells; Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast, And deal from iron hands the spare repast;
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