Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains, Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves, O heavy loss, thy country ill could bear! She sunk, abandon'd to the wildest woe. Wrongs, injuries, from many a darksome den, two of next morning's sleep, but did not please me, so it laid by, an ill-digested effort, till the other day I gave it a critic-brush. These kinds of subjects are much hackneyed, and, besides, the wailings of the rhyming tribe over the ashes of the great are cursedly suspicious, and out of all character for sincerity. These ideas damped my muse's fire: however I have done the best I could.'--And in another letter to Dr. Geddes, he writes thus: "The foregoing poem has some tolerable lines in it, but the incurable wound of my pride will not suffer me to correct, or even peruse it. I sent a copy of it, with my best prose letter, to the son of the great man, the theme of the piece, by the hands of one of the noblest men in God's world, Alexander Wood, surgeon. When, behold! his solicitorship took no more notice of my poem or me than I had been a strolling fiddler, who had made free with his lady's name over a silly new reel! Did the gentleman imagine that I looked for any dirty gratuity?' View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong: Life's social haunts and pleasures I resign, WRITTEN IN FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE, ON THE BANKS OF NITH. This is from the original rough draft of the poem, in the possession of Mrs. Hyslop. THOU whom chance may hither lead, Be thou deckt in silken stole, Grave these maxims on thy soul. Life is but a day at most, Sprung from night, in darkness lost; Pleasures, insects on the wing Round Peace, the tenderest flower of Spring; Make the butterflies thy own; Those that would the bloom devour, Crush the locusts-save the flower. For the future be prepared, Guard wherever thou can'st guard; Welcome what thou can'st not shun. Follies past, give thou to air, Make their consequence thy care. Keep the name of man in mind, Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide! EPISTLE TO HUGH PARKER. In this strange land, this uncouth clime, A land that prose did never view it, Except when drunk he stacher't through it; I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk, Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures, Dowie she saunters down Nithside, Thou bure the Bard through many a shire? ROBERT BURNS. His mare. TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ. He was steward to the Duke of Queensberry, and a warm friend of the Poet. O, COULD I give thee India's wealth, Because thy joy in both would be To share them with a friend. But golden sands did never grace Then take what gold could never buy- WRITTEN ON A PANE OF GLASS. THE KIRK'S ALARM.* A BALLAD. [SECOND VERSION.] ORTHODOX, Orthodox, Who believe in John Knox, Of this piece Burns has given the following account, in a letter to Graham of Fintray:-Though I dare say you have none of the Solemn League and Covenant fire which shone so conspicuous in Lord George Gordon and the Kilmarnock weavers, yet I think you must have heard of Dr. M'Gill, one of the clergymen of Ayr, and his heretical book. God help him, poor man! Though he is one of the worthiest, as well as one of the ablest of the whole priesthood of the Kirk of Scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet the poor Doctor and his numerous family are in imminent danger of being thrown out (9th December, 1790) to the |