EPITAPH ON MISS JESSY LEWARS.

[The same Lady complaining of some slight indisposition, Burns told her he should take care to have an Epitaph ready for her in case of the worst, which he likewise wrote on a glass tumbler, to make a pair with the other, as follows:]

SAY, sages, what's the charm on earth,

Can turn Death's dart aside?

It is not purity and worth,

Else Jessy had not died.

ON HER RECOVERY.

BUT rarely seen since Nature's birth,
The natives of the sky,
Yet still one Seraph's left on earth,
For Jessy did not die.

TO THE SAME.

About the end of May, 1796, the Surgeon who attended Burns in his last illness, happened to call on him at the same time with Miss Jessy Lewars. In the course of conversation Mr. Brown mentioned, that he had been to see a collection of wild beasts just arrived in Dumfries. By way of aiding his description, he took the advertisement (containing a list of the animals to be exhibited) from his pocket. As he was about to hand it to Miss Lewars, the Poet took it out of his hand, and with some red ink standing beside hin, wrote on the back of the advertisement the following lines.

TALK not to me of savages

From Afric's burning sun,

No savage e'er could rend my heart,
As, Jessy, thou hast done.

But Jessy's lovely hand in mine,

A mutual faith to plight,

Not ev❜n to view the heavenly choir,
Would be so blest a sight.

LINES

Written on the back of a Bank Note.

WAE worth thy power, thou cursed leaf,
Fell source o' a' my woe and grief;
For lack o' thee I've lost my lass,
For lack o' thee I scrimp my glass.

I see the children of affliction

Unaided, through thy curs'd restriction.
I've seen th' oppressor's cruel smile
Amid his hapless victim's spoil:
And for thy potence vainly wish'd,
To crush the villain in the dust.

For lack o' thee I leave this much-lov'd shore,
Never, perhaps, to greet old Scotland more.
Kyle.

R. B.

LINES ON MISS J. SCOTT, OF AYR. OH! had each Scot of ancient times,

Been, Jeany Scott, as thou art, The bravest heart on English ground Had yielded like a coward.

LINES

On being asked, why God had made Miss Davies so little, and Mrs. *** so large.

Written on a pane of glass in the Inn at Moffat.
Ask why God made the gem so small,
And why so huge the granite?
Because God meant mankind should set
The higher value on it.

LINES

Written under the picture of the celebrated Miss Burns.

CEASE, ye prudes, your envious railing,
Lovely Burns has charms-confess;

True it is, she had one failing

Had a woman ever less.

LINES

Written and presented to Mrs. Kemble, on seeing
her in the character of Yarico.

KEMBLE, thou cur'st my unbelief

Of Moses and his rod;

At Yarico's sweet notes of grief

The rock with tears had flow'd.

Dumfries Theatre, 1794.

LINES

Written on a window at the King's Arms Tavern, Dumfries.

YE men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering 'Gainst poor Excisemen? give the cause a hearing. What are your landlords' rent-rolls? taxing ledgers. What premiers, what? even Monarchs' mighty guagers:

Nay, what are priests? those seeming godly wisemen;

What are they, pray? but spiritual Excisemen

VERSES

Written on a window of the Inn at Carron.

WE cam na here to view your warks
In hopes to be mair wise,

But only, lest we gangs to hell,
It may be nae surprise :

But when we tirl'dh at your door,
Your porter dought na1 hear us;
Sae may, should we to hell's yettsk come,
Your billy Satan sairm us!

TO DR. MAXWELL,

On Miss Jessy Staig's Recovery.

MAXWELL, if merit here you crave,
That merit I deny-

You save fair Jessy from the grave!
An angel could not die.

EPIGRAM ON A

HENPECKED COUNTRY SQUIRE.

O DEATH! hadst thou but spar'd his life,
Whom we this day lament;
We freely wad exchang'd the wife,
And a' been weel content.

Ev'n as he is, cauld in his graff,"
The swapo we yet will do't;
Tak you the carlin's carcase aff,
Thou 'se get the saul to boot.

ANOTHER.

ONE Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell,
When deprived of her husband she loved so well,
In respect for the love and affection he 'd shewn her,
She reduc'd him to dust, and she drank up the
powder.

But Queen N*******, of a different complexion,
When call'd on to order the fun'ral direction,
Would have eat her dead lord on a slender pretence,
Not to shew her respect, but-to save the expense.

A TOAST

[At a meeting of the Dumfries-shire Volunteers, held to commemorate the Anniversary of Rodney's Victory, April 12, 1782; Burrs was called upon for a song, instead of which he delivered the following lines extempore.]

INSTEAD of a song, boys, I'll give you a toastHere's the memory of those on the twelfth that we [found, That we lost, did I say? nay, by Heav'n that we For their fame it shall last while the world goes

lost;

round.

The next in succession, I'll give you the King, Whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing;

n Grave.

And here's the grand fabric, our free Constitution,
As built on the base of the great Revolution;
And longer with politics, not to be cramm'd,
Be anarchy curs'd, and be tyranny d-d!
And who would to Liberty e'er prove disloyal,
May his son be a hangman, and he his first trial.
IMPROMPTU

On Mrs. R's birth-day, 4th Nov. 1793.
OLD Winter with his frosty beard,
Thus once to Jove his prayer preferr'd:
• What have I done, of all the year,
To bear this hated doom severe ?
My cheerless sons 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 will so enrich me,
Spring, summer, autumn, cannot match me.
'Tis done!' says Jove;-so ends my story,
And Winter once rejoic'd in glory.

THE LOYAL NATIVES' VERSES.
YE sons of sedition, give ear to my song, [throng,
Let Syme, Burns, and Maxwell, pervade every
With Cracken the attorney, and Mundell the quack,
Send Willie the monger to hell with a smack.

9 At this period of our Foet's life, when political animosity was made the ground of private quarrel, the above foolish verses were sent as an attack on Burns and his friends for their political opinions. They were written by some member of a club styling themselves the Loyal Natives' of Dumfries, or rather by the united genius of that club, which was more distinguished for drunken loyalty, than either for respectability or poetical talent. The verses were handed over the table to Burns at a convivial meeting, and he instantly endorsed the subjoined reply.-Reliques, p. 108.