11. Happy, ye sons of busy life, Who, equal to the bustling strife,

No other view regard ! Ev'n when the wished end 's deny'd, Yet while the busy means are ply'd,

They bring their own reward :
Whilst 1, a hope-abandon’d wight,

Unfitted with an aim,
Meet ev'ry 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.

III.
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-gather'd fruits,

Beside his crystal well !
Or, haply, to his ev'ning thought,

By unfrequented stream,
The ways of men are distant brought,
A faint collected dream :
While praising, and raising

His thoughts to heav'n on high, As wand'ring, meand'ring,

He views the solemn sky.

IV.

Than I, no lonely hermit plac'd
Where never human footstep trac’d,

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!

V.
Oh! enviable, early days,
When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze,

To care, to guilt unknown!
How ill exchang'd 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 !

WINTER.

A DIRGE.

I.
Tae wintry west extends his blast,

And hail and rain does blaw;
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth

The blinding sleet and snaw :
While tumbling brown, the bourn comes down,

And roars frae bank to brae; And bird and beast in covert rest

And pass the heartless day.

II.
“ The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"*

The joyless winter-day.
Let others fear, to me more dear

Than all the pride of May:
The tempest's howl, it sooths my soul,

My griefs it seems to join,
The learless trees my fancy please,

Their fate resembles mine!

III.
Thou Pow'r Supreme, whose mighty scheme

These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,

Because they are thy Will!

• Dr. Young

T'hen all I want (0, do thou grant

This one request of mine :) Since to enjoy thou dost deny,

Assist me to resign.

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,

The short but simple annals of the poor.

GRAY.

I. My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend!

No mercenary bard his homage pays; With honest pride I scorn each selfish end;

My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise : To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,

The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways ;

What A**** in a cottage would have been ; Ah! tho’his worth unknown, far happier there, I

ween ;

II.
November.chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ;

The short’ning winter-day is near a close ;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ;

The black’ning trains o' craws to their repose

The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,

This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,

Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hame

ward bend.

III.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ;
The' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher thro'

'To meet their Dad, wi' Aichterin noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnily,

His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil,

IV.
Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in,

At service out, amang the farmers roun’; Some ca’ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin

A cannie errand to a neebor town: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,

In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e’e, Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown,

Or deposite her sair-won perny-fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

V.
Wi' joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet,

An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers : The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd fleet;

Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears;