That heart, where motley follies blend,
Was sternly still to honour true;
To prove Clarinda's fondest friend
Was what a lover sure might do.
The muse his ready quill employed,
No nearer bliss he could pursue;
That bliss Clarinda cold denied
'Send word by Charles how you do.'
The chill behest disarmed his muse,
Till passion all impatient grew :
He wrote, and hinted for excuse
'Twas 'cause he'd nothing else to do.
But by those hopes I have above,
And by those faults I dearly rue,
The deed-the boldest mark of love—
For thee that deed I dare to do!
O could the fates but name the price
Would bless me with your charms and you!
With frantic joy I'd pay it thrice,
If human art and power could do.
Then take, Clarinda! friendship's hand
(Friendship at least I may avow);
And lay no more your chill command,-
I'll write whatever I've to do!
TO A SONG WRITTEN BY CLARINDA.
YOUR friendship much can make me blest
O why that bliss destroy?
Why urge the only one request
You know I must deny?
Stanza added by Burns to Clarinda's Song.
Your thought-if love must harbour there,
Conceal it in that thought;
Nor cause me from my bosom tear
The very friend I sought.
ADDED BY BURNS TO CLARINDA'S SONG
Go on, Sweet Bird.
FOR thee is laughing nature gay,
For thee she pours the vernal day;
For me in vain is nature drest
While joy's a stranger to my breast.
THE FIRST KISS AT PARTING.
HUMID seal of soft affections,
Tenderest pledge of future bliss,
Dearest tie of young connections,
Love's first snowdrop, virgin kiss!
Speaking silence, dumb confession,
Passion's birth, and infants' play,
Dove-like fondness, chaste concession,
Glowing dawn of future day!
Sorrowing joy, adieu's last action,
(Lingering lips must now disjoin);
What words can ever speak affection
So thrilling and sincere as thine?
ON GLENRIDDELL'S FOX BREAKING HIS CHAIN.
THOU, Liberty, thou art my theme;
Not such as idle poets dream,
Who trick thee up a heathen goddess
That a fantastic cap and rod has:
Such stale conceits are poor and silly:
I paint thee out a highland filly,
A sturdy, stubborn, handsome dapple,
As sleek's a mouse, as round's an apple;
Who when thou pleasest can do wonders;
But, when thy luckless rider blunders,
Or if thy fancy should demur there,
Wilt break thy neck ere thou go further.
These things premised, I sing a Fox,
Was caught among his native rocks,
And to a dirty kennel chained,—
How he his liberty regained.
Glenriddell, whig without a stain,
A whig in principle and grain,
Couldst thou enslave a free-born creature,
A native denizen of Nature?
How couldst thou with a heart so good
(A better ne'er was sluiced with blood!)
Nail a poor devil to a tree
That ne'er did harm to thine or thee?
The staunchest whig, Glenriddell was
Quite frantic in his country's cause;
And oft was Reynard's prison passing,
And with his brother-whigs canvassing
The rights of men, the powers of women,
With all the dignity of freemen.
Sir Reynard daily heard debates
Of princes', kings', and Nations' fates,
With many rueful bloody stories
Of tyrants, Jacobites, and tories:
On Glenriddell's For breaking his Chain.
From liberty how angels fell,
And now are galley-slaves in hell;
How Nimrod first the trade began
Of binding slavery's chain on man;
How fell Semiramis (God damn her!)
Did first with sacrilegious hammer
(All ills till then were trivial matters)
For man dethroned forge 'hen-peck' fetters ;
How Xerxes, that abandoned tory,
Thought cutting throats was reaping glory,
Until the stubborn whigs of Sparta
Taught him great Nature's Magna Charta ;
How mighty Rome her fiat hurled
Resistless o'er a bowing world,
And, kinder than they did desire,
Polished mankind with sword and fire;
With much, too tedious to relate,
Of ancient and of modern date,
But ending still how Billy Pitt,
Unlucky boy! with wicked wit,
Has gagged old Britain, drained her coffer,
As butchers bind and bleed a heifer.
Thus wily Reynard by degrees,
In kennel listening at his ease,
Sucked in a mighty stock of knowledge,
As much as some folk at a College;
Knew Britain's rights and constitution,
Her aggrandisement, diminution;
How fortune wrought us good from evil :
Let no man then despise the Devil,
As who should say 'I ne'er can need him,’—
Since we to scoundrels owe our freedom.
Poems, generally denied to Burns, but
probably his composition.
WRITTEN IN A CHURCH-YARD IN GREENOCK AT THE GRAVE
OF MARY CAMPBELL-BURNS'S HIGHLAND MARY.
STRAIT is the spot and green the sod,
From whence my sorrows flow;
And soundly sleeps the ever dear
Inhabitant below.
Pardon my transport, gentle shade,
While o'er the turf I bow!
Thy earthly house is circumscrib'd,
And solitary now.
Not one poor stone to tell thy name,
Or make thy virtues known :
But what avails to me, to thee,
The sculpture of a stone?
I'll sit me down upon this turf,
And wipe away this tear:
The chill blast passes swiftly by,
And flits around thy bier.
Dark is the dwelling of the Dead,
And sad their house of rest:
Low lies the head by Death's cold arm
In awful fold embrac'd.
I saw the grim Avenger stand
Incessant by thy side;
Unseen by thee, his deadly breath
Thy lingering frame destroy'd.
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