And steal from me Maria's prying eye.
Blest Highland bonnet! once my proudest dress,
Now prouder still, Maria's temples press.
I see her wave thy towering plumes afar,
And call each coxcomb to the wordy war;
I see her face the first of Ireland's sons,1
And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze;
The crafty colonel 2 leaves the tartaned lines
For other wars, where he a hero shines;
The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred,
Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head,
Comes 'mid a string of coxcombs to display,
That veni, vidi, vici, is his way;

3

The shrinking bard adown an alley skulks,
And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich

hulks ;

(Though there, his heresies in church and state Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate :) Still she undaunted reels and rattles on,

And dares the public like a noontide sun.

1 The poet here enumerates several of Mrs. Riddel's visiting-friends. "Gillespie" has been noted as the name of the Irish gentleman first alluded to.

2 Colonel M'Dowall, of Logan, noted as the Lothario of his county during many long years.

3 Burns alludes in this poem to a family which in his day occupied a conspicuous place in Dumfriesshire society. Mr. John Bushby had raised himself to wealth and importance, first as a solicitor, and afterwards as a banker. The person referred to in these lines was Mr. Bushby Maitland, son of John Bushby, then a young advocate, and supposed to be by no means the equal of his father in point of intellect.

ET. 36.] EPISTLE FROM ESOPUS TO MARIA. 97

(What scandal called Maria's jaunty stagger, The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger? Whose spleen e'en worse than Burns's venom when

He dips in gall unmixed his eager pen,
And pours his vengeance in the burning line,
Who christened thus Maria's lyre divine
The idiot strum of vanity bemused,

And even the abuse of poesy abused?

Who called her verse a parish workhouse, made For motley, foundling fancies, stolen or strayed?)

A workhouse! ah, that sound awakes my woes,
And pillows on the thorn my racked repose!
In durance vile here must I wake and weep,
And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep
That straw where many a rogue has lain of
yore,

And vermined gipsies littered heretofore!
Why Lonsdale thus, thy wrath on vagrants
pour?

Must earth no rascal save thyself endure?

Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell,

And make a vast monopoly of hell?

Thou know'st the virtues cannot hate thee

worse;

The vices also, must they club their curse ?

Or must no tiny sin to others fall,

Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all?
Maria, send me, too, thy griefs and cares;

In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares.

As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls,
Who on my fair one Satire's vengeance hurls?
Who calls thee pert, affected, vain coquette,
A wit in folly, and a fool in wit?
Who says that fool alone is not thy due,
And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true?
Our force united on thy foes we'll turn,
And dare the war with all of woman born:
For who can write and speak as thou and I
My periods that deciphering defy,

And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply?

THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS.1

TUNE- Lass of Inverness.

The first half-stanza of this song is from an older composition, which Burns here improved upon.

THE lovely lass o' Inverness,

Nae joy nor pleasure can she see;

1 The songs wholly, or almost wholly, by Burns, furnished for the fifth volume of Johnson's Museum, now follow, as far as p. 112.

66

99

ET. 36.]

A RED, RED ROSE.

For e'en and morn she cries, Alas!

And aye the saut tear blin's her e'e. Drumossie Moor Drumossie-day

A waefu' day it was to me!
For there I lost my father dear,
My father dear, and brethren three.

Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay,
Their graves are growing green to see,
And by them lies the dearest lad
That ever blest a woman's e'e!
Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,
A bluidy man I trow thou be !

For monie a heart thou hast made sair,
That ne'er did wrong to thine or thee.

O MY luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O my luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly played in tune.

131605A

As fair art thou, my bonny lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun,
I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare-thee-weel, my only luve!
And fare-thee-weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,

Though it were ten thousand mile.1

1 This song was written by Burns as an improvement upon a street ditty, which Mr. Peter Buchan says was composed by a Lieutenant Hinches, as a farewell to his sweetheart, when on the eve of parting. Various versions of the original song are given in Hogg and Motherwell's edition of Burns, including one from a stall sheet containing six excellent new songs, which Mr. Motherwell conjectures to have been printed about 1770, and of which his copy bore these words on its title, in a childish scrawl believed to be that of the Ayrshire bard, "Robine Burns aught this buik and no other." A version more elegant than any of these was communicated to me by the late Mr. Robert Hogg in 1823:

O fare-thee-well, my own true love,

O fare-thee-well a while;

But I'll come back and see thee, love,
Though I go ten thousand mile.

Ten thousand mile is a long, long way,
When from me you are gone;