ELPHINSTONE'S TRANSLATION OF MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS.
OH thou, whom poesy abhors!
Whom prose has turned out of doors!
Heard'st thou yon groan? proceed no further!
"Twas laurel'd Martial roaring murther!
A FAREWELL TO CLARINDA,
ON LEAVING EDINBURGH.
CLARINDA, mistress of my soul,
The measured time is run!
The wretch beneath the dreary pole
So marks his latest sun.
To what dark cave of frozen night
Shall poor Sylvander hie;
Deprived of thee, his life and light,
The sun of all his joy?
We part-but, by these precious drops
That fill thy lovely eyes!
No other light shall guide my steps
Till thy bright beams arise.
She, the fair sun of all her sex,
Has blest my glorious day;
And shall a glimmering planet fix
My worship to its ray?
WITH A PRESENT OF A PAIR OF DRINKING-GLASSES.
FAIR Empress of the Poet's soul,
And Queen of Poetesses;
Clarinda, take this little boon,
This humble pair of glasses.
And fill them high with generous juice,
As generous as your mind;
And pledge me in the generous toast-
"The whole of human kind!"
"To those who love us!"-second fill;
But not to those whom we love;
Lest we love those who love not us!
A third-" To thee and me,
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,
Here, ambush'd by the chimla cheek,
Except when drunk he stacher't through it;
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 internal:
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 kenn'd 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?
Or turn the pole like any arrow;
Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow,
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?
Torbolton, 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.
An instrument for dressing flax.
THE FETE CHAMPETRE.
TUNE-Killicrankie.
Oн wha will to Saint Stephen's House,
To do our errands there, man?
Oh wha will to Saint Stephen's House,
O' th' merry lads o' Ayr, man?
Or will ye send a man-o'-law?
Or will ye send a sodger?
Or him wha led o'er Scotland a'
The meikle Ursa-Major?
Come, will ye court a noble lord,
Or buy a score o' lairds, man?
For worth and honour pawn their word,
Their vote shall be Glencaird's, man.
Ane gies them coin, ane gies them wine,
Anither gies them clatter;
Anbank, wha guessed the ladies' taste,
He gies a Fête Champêtre.
When Love and Beauty heard the news,
The gay greenwoods amang, man,
Where, gathering flowers and busking bowers,
They heard the blackbird's sang, man:
A vow, they seal'd it with a kiss,
Sir Politics to fetter,
As theirs alone, the patent-bliss,
To hold a Fête Champêtre.
Then mounted Mirth, on gleesome wing,
Ower hill and dale she flew, man;
Ilk whimpling burn, ilk crystal spring,
Ilk glen and shaw she knew, man:
She summoned every social sprite,
That sports by wood and water,
On th' bonnie banks o' Ayr to meet,
And keep this Fête Champêtre.
Cauld Boreas, wi' his boisterous crew,
Were bound to stakes like kye, man;
And Cynthia's car, o' silver fu',
Clamb up the starry sky, man:
Reflected beams dwell in the streams,
Or down the current shatter;
The western breeze steals through the trees
To view this Fête Champêtre.
How many a robe sae gaily floats!
What sparking jewels glance, man!
To Harmony's enchanting notes,
As moves the mazy dance, man.
The echoing wood, the winding flood,
Like Paradise did glitter,
When angels met, at Adam's yett,
To hold their Fête Chamrêtre,
When Politics came there, to mix
And make his ether-stane, man!
He circled round the magic ground,
But entrance found he nane, man:
He blushed for shame, he quat his name,
Forswore it, every letter,
Wi' humble prayer to join and share
This festive Fête Champêtre.
FIRST EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY.
WHEN Nature her great masterpiece designed,
And framed her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She formed of various parts the various man.
Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding industry, and sober worth:
Thence peasants, fariners, native sons of earth,
And merchandise' whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics' many-apron'd kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net;
The caput mortuum of gross desires
Makes a material for mere knights and squires ;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow;
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,
Then marks the unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines;
Last, she sublimes the Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.
The order'd system fair before her stood,
Nature, well-pleased, pronounced it very good;
But e'er she gave creating labour o'er,
Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more.
Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter,
Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter;
With arch alacrity and conscious glee
(Nature may have her whim as well as we,
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it)
She forms the thing, and christens it-a poet,
Creature, though oft the prey of care and sorrow,
When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow.
A being formed t' amuse his graver friends,
Admired and praised-and there the homage ends:
A mortal quite unfit for fortune's strife,
Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life;
Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give,
Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live;
Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groan,
Yet frequent all unheeded in his own.
But honest Nature is not quite a Turk,
She laughed at first, then felt for her poor work.
Pitying the propless climber of mankind,
She cast about a standard tree to find;
And, to support his helpless woodbine state,
Attached him to the generous truly great,
A title, and the only one I claim,
To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham.
Pity the tuneful Muses' hapless train,
Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main!
Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff,
That never gives-though humbly takes enough;
The little fate allows, they share as soon,
Unlike sage proverb'd wisdom's hard-wrung boon.
The world were blest did bliss on them depend,
Ah, that "the friendly e'er should want a friend!"
Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son,
Who life and wisdom at one race begun,
Who feel by reason and who give by rule
(Instinct's a brute and sentiment a fool!)-
Who make poor will do wait upon I should-
We own they're prudent, but who feels they're good?
Ye wise ones, hence! ye hurt the social eye!
God's image rudely etched on base alloy !
But come, ye who the godlike pleasure know,
Heaven's attribute distinguished-to bestow !
Whose arms of love would grasp the human race:
Come thou who giv'st with all a courtier's grace;
Friend of my life, true patron of my rhymes!
Prop of my dearest hopes for future times.
Why shrinks my soul half-blushing, half-afraid,
Backward, abashed, to ask thy friendly aid?
I know my need, I know thy giving hand,
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command;
But there are such who court the tuneful Nine-
Heavens! should the branded character be mine!
Whose verse in manhood's pride sublimely flows,
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose.
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit
Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit!
Seek not the proofs in private life to find;
Pity the best of words should be but wind!
So to heaven's gate the lark's shrill song ascends,
But grovelling on the earth the carol ends.
In all the clan'rous cry of starving want,
They dun benevolence with shameless front;
Oblige them, patronise their tinsel lays,
They persecute you all your future days!
Ere my poor soul such condemnation stain,
My horny fist assume the plough again;
The piebald jacket let me patch once more;
On eighteenpence a week I've lived before.
Though, thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift!
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