The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha'1 Bible ance his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart2 haffets3 wearing thin an' bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales1 a portion with judicious care;
And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.
They chaunt their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name;
Or noble Elgin beets the heav'n-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays.
Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.
The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed,
How he, who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head:
How his first followers and servants sped,
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand;
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.
Then kneeling down to Heaven's eternal king,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,"
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear,
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.
1 Hall. 2 Gray. 3 Temples of the head. 4 Chooses.
Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's ev'ry grace except the heart!
The Power, incens'd, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul;
And in his book of life the inmates poor enroll.
Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request
That he who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But, chiefly, in their hearts, with grace divine preside.
ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL
WEE, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stourel
Thy slender stem;
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem.
Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!2
Wi' spreckled breast,
When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling east.
The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield,
1 Dust. 2 Wetness. 3 Peeped.
Such is the fate of artless Maid,
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betray'd,
And guileless trust,
Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid
Such is the fate of simple Bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!
Unskilful he to note the card
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er!
Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n,
Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,
By human pride or cunning driv'n,
Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,
He, ruin'd, sink!
Even thou, who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's plough-share drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,
Shall be thy doom!
THE gloomy night is gath'ring fast,
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast,
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain,
I see it driving o'er the plain;
1 Shelter. 2 Barren. 3 Stubble.
The hunter now has left the moor,
The scatter'd covies meet secure,
While here I wander prest with care,
Along the lonely banks of Ayr.
The Autumn mourns her rip'ning corn
By early Winter's ravage torn;
Across her placid, azure sky,
She sees the scowling tempest fly:
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave,
I think upon the stormy_wave,
Where many a danger I must dare,
Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr.
"T is not the surging billow's roar,
"T is not that fatal deadly shore;
Though death in ev'ry shape appear,
The wretched have no more to fear:
But round my heart the ties are bound,
That heart transpierc'd with many a wound;
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear,
To leave the bonnie banks of Ayr.
Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales,
1 Her heathy moors and winding vales;
The scenes where wretched fancy roves,
Pursuing past, unhappy loves!
Farewell, my friends! Farewell, my foes!
My peace with these, my love with those-
The bursting tears my heart declare,
Farewell the bonnie banks of Ayr.
LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON THE APPROACH
Now nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea:
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.
Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle, in his noentide bow'r,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis mild wi' many a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest:
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.
Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae ;
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang.
I was the Queen o' bonnie France,
Where happy I hae been;
Fu' lightly raise I in the morn,
As blythe lay down at e'en:
And I'm the sovereign of Scotland,
And monie a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands,
And never ending care.
My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine;
And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er wad blink on mine!
God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee:
And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend
Remember him for me!
Oh! soon, to me, may summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn!
And in the narrow house o' death
Let winter round me rave;
And the next flow'rs that deck the spring
Bloom on my peaceful grave!
ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE LIMP BY ME, WHICH A FELLOW
INHUMAN man! curse on thy barbarous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye:
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!
Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field,
The bitter little that of life remains:
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