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*Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom No Sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

* Flew creeking.]

Some months after I had written this line, it gave me pleasure to observe that Bartram had observed the same circumstance of the Savanna Crane. "When these Birds move their wings in flight, their strokes are slow, moderate and regular; and even when at a considerable distance or high above us, we plainly hear the quill-feathers; their shafts and webs upon one another creek as the joints or working of a vessel in a tempestuous

sea."

VOI. II.

TO A FRIEND

Who had declared his intention of writing no more Poetry.

DEAR Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween

That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount
Hight Castalie; and (sureties of thy faith)

That Pity and Simplicity stood by,

And promised for thee, that thou shouldst renounce

The world's low cares and lying vanities,

Stedfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,

And wash'd and sanctified to Poesy.

Yes-thou wert plunged, but with forgetful hand

Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior Son:
And with those recreant unbaptized Heels
Thou'rt flying from thy bounden Ministeries-

So sore it seems and burthensome a task

To weave unwithering flowers! But take thou heed:

For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed Boy,

And I have arrows *mystically dipt,

Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns dead?
And shall he die unwept, and sink to Earth
"Without the meed of one melodious tear?"
Thy Burns, and Nature's own beloved Bard,
Who to the "Illustrious+ of his native Land
"So properly did look for Patronage.”

Ghost of Mæcenas! hide thy blushing face!

They snatch'd him from the Sickle and the PloughTo guard Ale-Firkins.

Oh! for shame return!

On a bleak Rock, midway the Aonian mount,
There stands a lone and melancholy tree,
Whose aged branches to the midnight blast
Make solemn music: pluck its darkest bough,
Ere yet the unwholesome Night-dew be exhaled,
And weeping wreath it round thy Poet's Tomb.
Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow,

* Vide Pind. Olym. ii, l. 156.

Verbatim from Burns's dedication of his Poem to the Nobility and Gentry the Caledonian Hunt.

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Pick the rank hensbane and the dusky flowers

Of night-shade, or its red and tempting fruit.

These with stopped nostril and glove-guarded hand
Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine

The Illustrious Brow of Scotch Nobility.

1796.

TO A GENTLEMAN.

Composed on the night after his recitation of a Poem on the Growth of an Individual Mind.

FRIEND of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good!

Into my heart have I received that Lay

More than historic, that prophetic Lay

Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
Of the foundations and the building up

Of the Human Spirit, thou hast dared to tell
What may be told, to th' understanding mind
Revealable; and what within the mind
By vital Breathings, like the secret soul
Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the Heart
Thoughts all too deep for words!—

Theme hard as high!

Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears
(The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth)

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