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Castle of Montgomery, not only did he instinctively recall the golden hours on angel-wings, when

Wi' mony a vow, and lock'd embrace,

Their parting was fu' tender;

And, pledging aft to meet again,

They tore themselves asunder,

but that thorn by Faile stream as cruelly forced upon his remembrance

-fell Death's untimely frost,

That nipt my flower sae early!

Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay
That wraps my Highland Mary!

Sorrowful indeed are all the associations of the banks of Ayr, and as the traveller when "the gloomy night is gathering fast," traces the poet's melancholy footsteps along that river side, and recalls those inspired lamentations, let him, selfishly, thank Heaven that his soul is not lighted up and consumed with the fearful flame of Genius.

"I had been for some time," says Burns, "skulking from covert to covert, under all the terrors of a jail; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell of my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock, and I had composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia

'The gloomy night is gathering fast,'

-when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend of mine, overthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my poetic ambition." Just before this, we are told

by one of his friends, "he had left Dr. Laurie's family, after a visit which he expected to be the last, and on his way home had to cross a wide stretch of solitary moor. His mind was strongly affected by parting for ever with a scene where he had tasted so much elegant and social pleasure; and, depressed by the contrasted gloom of his prospects, the aspect of nature harmonised with his feelings: it was a lowering and heavy evening in the end of autumn. The wind was up, and whistled through the rushes and long spear grass which bent before it. The clouds were driving across the sky, and cold pelting showers, at intervals, added discomfort of body to cheerlessness of mind." Under these circumstances, and in this frame, Burns composed

THE BONNIE BANKS OF AYR.

The gloomy night is gathering fast,
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast,
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain,
I see it driving o'er the plain:
The hunter now has left the moor,
The scatter'd coveys 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.

THE BONNIE BANKS OF AYR.

"Tis not the surging billow's roar,

'Tis not the fatal deadly shore;
Tho' 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,
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!

33

The last few lines will suggest the similar farewell of another child of the muses, equally unhappy, even amid wealth and fame, the enfant gáté d'un monde qu'il gâta:

Here's a sigh for those who love me,
And a smile for those who hate,
And, whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate.

D

BURNS AT IRVINE.

RVINE forms a pregnant episode of the poet's life. The farm of Mount Oliphant is unproductive in corn. His father deems it might answer for flax, and so resolves to

grow it, and to leave to the poet the task of manufacturing it. Robert Burns must, therefore, learn the art of flax-dressing at Irvine; and it is known that in this department he did establish much eclat, if not success; for, in a carousal on a new-year's night, his shop took fire and burnt to ashes, and he was left, like a true poet, as he says, not worth a sixpence.

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MAUCHLINE AND MOSSGIEL.

E have said that Burns was eighteen years of age when the ruin of his father's farming speculations led to the removal of the whole family to Tarbolton. When the poet reached

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twenty-five, a second change, by his

father's death, "came o'er the spirit

of his dreams" and of his life: and he and his brother Gilbert took the farm of Mossgiel, near Mauchline, ten miles east of Tarbolton, on the bonniest portion of the "bonnie banks of Ayr."

It was amid these delightful scenes, that the poetfarmer mainly devoted himself to his spiritual vocation, and neglected the more profitable duties which he owed to Mammon. He slept in the stable-loft, and he mechanically followed the plough, but his soul was ever in heaven, and he suffered the penalty on earth. The offended prince of the world, by the hands of his ministers, the commissioners of excise, made him a gauger, with the reversion of a monument at his death.

Mechanically, we say, he followed the plough during the day; but something more than this was requisite to succeed as a farmer. To keep up with the progress of agricultural science was as needful for agricultural prosperity then as now: but, instead of devoting his

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