A few short months, and glad and gay, I am a bending aged tree, That long has stood the wind and rain But now has come a cruel blast, And my last halde of earth is gane. Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring, Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom; But I maun lie before the storm, And ithers plant them in my room. 'I've seen sae monie changefu' years, On earth I am a stranger grown; I wander in the ways of men, Alike unknowing and unknown: Unheard, unpitied, unreliev'd, I bear alane my lade o' care, For silent, low, on beds of dust, Lie a' that would my sorrows share. • And last (the sum of a' my griefs !) My noble master lies in clay; The flow'r amang our barons bold, His country's pride, his country's stay: In weary being now I pine, For a' the life of life is dead, And hope has left my aged ken, On forward wing for ever fled. Awake thy last sad voice, my harp! The voice of woe and wild despair! Awake! resound thy latest lay, Then sleep in silence evermair! And thou, my last, best, only friend, That fillest an untimely tomb, d Nought. • Hold. Accept this tribute from the Bard Thou brought from Fortune's mirkest gloom. 'In poverty's low barren vale, Thick mists, obscure, involv'd me round; Nae ray of fame was to be found: That smiles sae sweetly on her knee; LINES Sent to Sir John Whitefoord, of Whitefoord, Bart., THOU, who thy honour as thy God rever'st, [fear'st, The friend thou valued'st, I the patron lov'd; Darkest. See Note, page 126. We'll mourn till we too go as he has gone, And tread the dreary path to that dark world unknown. LAMENT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, Now Nature hangs her mantle green And spreads her sheets o' daisies white Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams, But nocht can glad the weary wight Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, The merle, in his noontide bow'r, Now blooms the lily by the bank, I was the Queen o' bonnie France, h The Blackbird. Strong. i The Thrush. m Full. & Must. And I'm the Sov'reign of Scotland, And monie a traitor there : Yet here I lie in foreign bands, And never-ending care. But as for thee, thou false woman, My sister and my fae, Grim Vengeance, yet, shall whet a sword The weeping blood in woman's breast Nor th' balm that drops on wounds of woe My son! my son! may kinder stars And may those pleasures gild thy reign, God keep thee frae thy mother's faes, Or turn their hearts to thee; And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, Remember him for me! Oh! soon, to me, may summer-suns Nae mair light up the inorn! Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds And in the narrow house o' death Let winter round me rave; And the next flow'rs that deck the spring, Bloom on my peaceful grave! Would shine. . No more EPISTLES. EPISTLE TO JAMES SMITH.P Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul! DEAR Smith, the sleest, pawkier thief, For ne'er a bosom yet was priefu For me, I swear by sun and moon, Mair taenw I'm wi' you. That auld capricious carlin Nature, And in her freaks, on ev'ry feature, She 's wrote the man.' Just now I've taen the fit o' rhyme, My fancy yerkita up sublime Wi' hasty summon : Hae ye a leisure-moment's time To hear what's comin'? p Then a shopkeeper in Mauchline. He afterward went to the West Indies, where he died. q Pronounced slee-est, slyest. S Plunder. t Wizard-spell. r Cunning. y Scanty. a Jerked, lashed. More delighted. x A stout old woman. z Like barm, or yeast. |