EPITAPH ON THE POET'S DAUGHTER.'
HERE lies a rose, a budding rose,
Blasted before its bloom;
Whose Innocence did sweets disclose
Beyond that flower's perfume.
To those who for her loss are grieved,
This consolation's given-
She's from a world of woe relieved,
And blooms a rose in Heaven.
EPITAPH ON GABRIEL RICHARDSON."
HERE Brewer Gabriel's fire's extinct,
And empty all his barrels:
He's blest-if, as he brew'd, he drink
In upright honest morals.
EPISTLE TO HUGH PARKER.'
In this strange land, this uncouth clime,
A land unknown to prose or rhyme;
Where words ne'er crost the Muse's heckles,
Nor limpet in poetic shackles;
A land that prose did never view it,
Except when drunk he stachert through it;
1 These lines are said to have been written by Burns on the loss of his daughter, who died in the autumn of 1795, and of whom he thus speaks in his letter to Mrs. Dunlop, from Dumfries, January 31, 1796: These many months you have been two packets in my debt-what sin of ignorance I have committed against so highly valued a friend I am utterly at a loss to guess. Alas! madam, ill can I afford, at this time, to be deprived of any of the small remnant of my pleasures. I have lately drunk deep of the cup of affliction. The autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling child, and that at a distance too, and so rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay the last duties to her. I had scarcely begun to recover from that shock when I became myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and long the die spun doubtful; until, after many weeks of sick bed, it seems to have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl across my room, and once indeed have been before my own door in the street.
"When pleasure fascinates the mental sight,
Affliction purifies the visual ray,
Religion hails the drear, the untried night,
That shuts, for ever shuts, life's doubtful day."
2 A brewer in Dumfries.
A merchant of Kilmarnock, and a generous patron of Burns at The beginning of his poetical career.
• Instrument for dressing flax.
Here, ambush'd by the chimla' chook,
Hid in an atmosphere of reek,
I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk,
I hear it-for in vain I leuk.—
The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel,
Enhusked by a fog infernal:
Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,
I sit and count my sins by chapters;
For life and spunk, like ither Christians,
I'm dwindled down to mere existence,
Wi' nae converse but Gallowa' bodies,
Wi' nae kend face but Jenny Geddes.
Jenny, my Pegasean pride!
Dowie' she saunters down Nithside,
And aye a westlin leuk she throws,
While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose!
Was it for this, wi' canny care,
Thou bure the Bard through many a shire!
At howes or hillocks never stumbled,
And late or early never grumbled?
Oh, had I power like inclination,
I'd heeze' thee up a constellation,
To canter with the Sagitarre,
Or loup the ecliptic like a bar,
Or turn the pole like any arrow:
Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow,
Down the zodiac urge the race,
And cast dirt on his godship's face:
For I could lay my bread and kail,
He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail.-
Wi' a' this care and a' this grief,
And sma', sma' prospect of relief,
And nought but peat reek i' my head,
How can I write what ye can read?-
Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o' June,
Ye'll find me in a better tune;
But till we meet and weet our whistle,
Tak this excuse for nae epistle.
ADDRESS OF BEELZEBUB TO THE PRESIDENT'
OF THE HIGHLAND SOCIETY.
LONG life, my Lord, an' health be yours,
Unskaith'd by hunger'd Highland boors;
Lord grant nae duddie' desperate beggar,
Wi' dirk, claymore, or rusty trigger,
May twin auld Scotland o' a life
She likes-as lambkins like a knife.
Faith you and A -s were right
To keep the Highland hounds in sight;
I daubt na'! they wad bid nae better
Than let them ance out owre the water;
Then up amang thae lakes and seas
They'll mak what rules and laws they please,
Some daring Hancock, or a Franklin,
May set their Highland bluid a ranklin';
Some Washington again may head them,
Or some Montgomery fearless lead them,
Till God knows what may be effected,
When by such heads and hearts directed-
Poor dunghill sons of dirt and mire
May to Patrician rights aspire!
Nae sage North, now, nor sager Sackville,
To watch and premier o'er the pack vile;
An' whare will ye get Howes and Clintons
To bring them to a right repentance,
To cowe the rebel generation,
An' save the honour o' the nation?
They an' be ! what right hae they
To meat or sleep, or light o' day?
Far less to riches, pow'r, or freedom,
But what your Lordship likes to gie them.
But hear, my Lord! Glengarry, hear!
Your hand's owre light on them, I fear;
Your factors, grieves, trustees, and bailies,
I canna' say but they do gaylies;*
They lay aside a' tender mercies,
An' tirl the hallions to the birses;
Yet while they're only poind't and herriet,
They'll keep their stubborn Highland spirit
But smash them! crash them a' to spails!
An' rot the dyvors' i' the jails!
+ Pretty well.
• Seized and plundered. 8 Chips.
The young dogs, swinge' them to the labour;
Let wark and hunger mak them sober!
The hizzies, if they're aughtlins fawsont,'
Let them in Drury-lane be lesson'd!
An' if the wives an' dirty brats
E'en thigger' at your doors an' yetts'
Flaffan wi' duds" an' grey wi' beas',
Frightin' awa your deucks an' geese,
Get out a horsewhip, or a jowler,
The langest thong, the fiercest growler,
An' gar the tatter'd gypsies pack
Wi' a' their bastarts on their back!
Go on, my Lord! I lang to meet you,
An' in my house at hame to greet you;
Wi' common lords ye shanna mingle,
The benmost neuk beside the ingle,
At my right han' assign'd your seat
'Tween Herod's hip and Polycrate,—
Or if you on your station tarrow,"
Between Almagro and Pizarro,
A seat, I'm sure ye're weel deservin 't;
An' till ye come-Your humble servant,
June 1, Anno Mundi, 5790.
TO MR. JOHN KENNEDY.
Now, Kennedy, if foot or horse
E'er bring you in by Mauchline Corse,
Lord, man, there's lasses there wad force
And down the gate, in faith, they're worse,
And mair unchancy.
But, as I'm sayin', please step to Dow's,
And taste sic gear as Johnnie brews,
Till some bit callan bring me news
That you are there,
And if we dinna haud a bouze,
I'se ne'er drink mair.
It's no I like to sit an' swallow,
Then like a swine to puke an' wallow;
2 Decent.
6 Fluttering with rags.
4 Farm-yard gates Murmur.
ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT DUNDAS, ESQ. 231
But gie me just a true good fallow
Wi' right ingine,'
And spunkie ance to make us mellow,
And then we'll shine.
Now, if ye're ane o' warl's folk,
Wha rate the wearer by the cloak,
An 'sklent on poverty their joke,
Wi' you no friendship will I troke,
Nor cheap nor dear.
But if, as I'm informed weel,
Ye hate, as ill's the vera Deil,
The flinty heart that canna feel
Come, Sir, here's tae you;
Hae, there's my haun', I wiss' you weel,
And guid be wi' you.
ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT DUNDAS, ESQ., OF ARNISTON, LATE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COURT OF SESSION.
LONE on the bleaky hills the straying flocks
Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks:
Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains,
The gathering floods burst o'er the distant plains;
Beneath the blasts the leafless forests groan;
The hollow caves return a sullen moan.
Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves,
Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves!
Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye,
Sad to your sympathetic scenes I fly;
Where to the whistling blast and waters' roar,
Pale Scotia's recent wound I may deplore.
O heavy loss, thy country ill could bear!
A loss these evil days can ne'er repair!
Justice, the high vicegerent of her God,
Her doubtful balance eyed, and sway'd her rod;
Hearing the tidings of the fatal blow
She sunk, abandon'd to the wildest woe.
Wrongs, injuries from many a darksome den,
Now gay in hope explore the paths of men:
1 Genius, or disposition.
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