Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!
Wi' speckled breast,
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet
The purpling east.
Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storın,
Scarce reared above the parent earth
Thy tender form.
The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield:
But thou, beneath the random bield
O' clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble-field,
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er!
Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven
To misery's brink,
Till wrenched of every stay but Heaven,
He, ruined, sink!
Even thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,
Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight,
Shall be thy doom.
Alas! how oft does goodness wound itself,
And sweet affection prove the spring of woe!"-HOME.
OH thou pale orb, that silent shines,
While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch who inly pines,
And wanders here to wail and weep!
With woe I nightly vigils keep
Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam;
And mourn, in lamentation deep,"
How life and love are all a dream.
I joyless view thy rays adorn
The faintly-marked distant hill:
I joyless view thy trembling horn
Reflected in the gurgling rill:
My fondly-fluttering heart be still!
Thou busy power, remembrance, cease!
Ah! must the agonizing thrill
For ever bar returning peace!
No idly-feigned poetic pains
My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim;
No shepherd's pipe-Arcadian strains;
No fabled tortures, quaint and tame :
The plighted faith; the mutual flame;
The oft-attested Powers above;
The promised father's tender name;
These were the pledges of my love!
Encircled in her clasping arms,
How have the raptured moments flown!
How have I wished for fortune's charms,
For her dear sake, and her's alone!
And must I think it!-is she gone,
My secret heart's exulting boast?
And does she heedless hear my groan?
And is she ever, ever lost?
Oh can she bear so base a heart,
So lost to honour, lost to truth,
As from the fondest lover part,
The plighted husband of her youth! Alas! life's path may be unsmooth!
Her way may lie through rough distress!
Then who her pangs and pains will soothe,
Her sorrows share, and make them less?
Ye winged hours that o'er us passed,
Enraptured more, the more enjoyed,
Your dear remembrance in my breast,
My fondly-treasured thoughts employed.
That breast, how dreary now, and void,
For her too scanty once of room!
Even every ray of hope destroyed,
And not a wish to gild the gloom!
The morn that warms th' approaching day,
Awakes me up to toil and woe:
I see the hours in long array,
That I must suffer, lingering, slow.
Full many a pang, and many a throe,
Keen recollection's direful train,
Must wring my soul ere Phoebus, low,
Shall kiss the distant, western main.
And when my nightly couch I try,
Sore harassed out with care and grief, My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye Keep watchings with the nightly thief: Or if I slumber, fancy, chief,
Reigns haggard-wild in sore affright: Even day, all bitter, brings relief
From such a horror-breathing night.
Oh thou bright queen, who o'er the expanse,
Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway!
Oft has thy silent-marking glance
Observed us, fondly-wandering, stray!
The time, unheeded, sped away,
While love's luxurious pulse beat high, Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray,
To mark the mutual kindling eye.
Oh scenes in strong remembrance set!
Scenes never, never to return!
Scenes, if in stupor I forget,
Again I feel, again I burn!
From every joy and pleasure torn,
Life's weary vale I'll wander through;
And hopeless, comfortless, I'll mourn
A faithless woman's broken vow.
OPPRESSED with grief, oppressed with care,
A burden more than I can bear,
I set me down and sigh:
Oh life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
Dim-backward as I cast my view,
What sickening scenes appear!
What sorrows yet may pierce me through,
Too justly I may fear!
Still caring, despairing,
Must be my bitter doom;
My woes here shall close ne'er
But with the closing tomb!
Happy, ye sons of busy life,
Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard!
Even when the wishèd end's denied,
Yet while the busy means are plied,
They bring their own reward:
Whilst I, a hope-abandoned wight,
Unfitted with an aim,
Meet every sad returning night
And joyless morn the same;
You, bustling, and justling,
Forget each grief and pain;
I, listless, yet restless,
Find every prospect vain.
How blest the solitary's lot,
Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot,
Within his humble cell,
The cavern wild with tangling-roots,
Sits o'er his newly-gathered fruits,
Beside his crystal well!
Or haply to his evening thought,
By unfrequented stream,
The ways of men are distant brought,
A faint collected dream;
While praising, and raising
His thoughts to heaven on high,
As wand'ring, meand'ring,
He views the solemn sky.
Than I, no lonely hermit placed,
Where never human footstep traced,
Less fit to play the part;
The lucky moment to improve,
And just to stop, and just to move,
With self-respecting art:
But ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys,
Which I too keenly taste,
The solitary can despise,
Can want, and yet be blest!
He needs not, he heeds not,
Or human love or hate,
Whilst I here, must cry here
At perfidy ingrate!
Oh enviable, early days,
When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze,
To care, to guilt unknown!
How ill exchanged for riper times,
To feel the follies, or the crimes,
Of others, or my own!
Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish!
The losses, the crosses,
That active man engage!
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim declining age.
ALL hail! inexorable lord!
At whose destruction-breathing word
The mightiest empires fall!
Thy cruel, wo-delighted train,
The ministers of grief and pain,
A sullen welcome, all!
With stern-resolved, despairing eye,
I see each aimèd dart;
For one has cut my dearest tie,
And quivers in my heart.
Then lowering and pouring,
The storm no more I dread;
Though thick'ning and black'ning
Round my devoted head.
And thou grim power, by life abhorred,
While life a pleasure can afford,
Oh hear a wretch's prayer!
No more I shrink appalled, afraid;
I court, I beg thy friendly aid,
To close this scene of care!
When shall my soul in silent peace,
Resign life's joyless day;
My weary heart its throbbings cease,
Cold mouldering in the clay?
No fear more, no tear more,
To stain my lifeless face;
Enclasped and grasped
Within thy cold embrace!
I HOLD it, sir, my bounden duty,
To warn you how that Master Tootie,
Alias, Laird M'Gaun,
Was here to hire yon lad away
'Bout whom ye spak the tither day,
And wad hae done't aff han':
spoke, other would, instantly
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