Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil
Besouth Magellan.

Ramsay an' famous Ferguson
Gied Forth an' Tay a lift aboon!
Yarrow an' Tweed, to monie a tune,
Owre Scotland rings,

While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr an' Doon,
Nae body sings.

Th' Illissus, Tiber, Thames, an' Seine, Glide sweet in monie a tunefu' line! But, Willie, set your fit to mine,

An' cock your crest, We'll gar our streams and burnies shine Up wi' the best.

We'll sing auld Coila's plains an' fells, Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells, Her banks an' braes, her dens an' dells,

Where glorious Wallace

Aft bure the gree, as story tells,

Frae southron billies.

At Wallace name what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood!
Oft have our fearless fathers strode
By Wallace' side,

Still pressing onward, red wat shood,
Or glorious dy❜d.

O, sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods, When lintwhites chant amang the buds,

And jinkin hares, in amorous whids,

Their loves enjoy,

While thro' the braes the cushat croods
With wailfu' cry!

Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me, When winds rave thro' the naked tree; Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree

Are hoary, gray;

Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,

Dark'ning the day!

O Nature! a' thy shews an' forms To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms! Whether the summer kindly warms Wi' life an' light,

Or winter howls in gusty storms,

The lang, dark night!

The Muse, nae poet ever fand her,
Till by himsel he learn'd to wander,
Adown some trotting burn's meander,
An' no think lang ;.

O sweet, to stray an' pensive ponder
A heart-felt sang!

The warly race may drudge an' drive, Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, and strive, Let me fair Nature's face descrive,

And I, wi' pleasure,

Shall let the busy, grumbling hive

Bum owre their treasure.

Fareweel, my ryhme-composing brither!' We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither: Now let us lay our heads thegither,

In love fraternal:

May Envy wallop in a tether,

Black fiend, infernal!

While highlandmen hate tolls and taxes; While moorlan' herds like guid fat braxies; While terra firma, on her axis

Diurnal turns,

Count on a friend, in faith an' practice,
In Robert Burns.

POSTSCRIPT.

My memory's no worth a preen ;
I had amaist forgotten clean,

Ye bade me write you what they mean
By this new light,*

'Bout which our herds sae aft hae been

Maist like to fight.

In days when mankind were but callans

At grammar, logic, an' sic talents,

They took nae pains their speech to balance, Or rules to gie;

But spak their thoughts in plain, braid lallans, Like you or me.

* See note, p. 56.

In thae auld times, they thought the moon, Just like a sark, or pair o' shoon,

Wore by degrees, to her last roon,

This past for certain, undisputed;
It ne'er cam i' their heads to doubt it,
Till chiels gat up an' wad confute it,
An' ca'd it wrang;

An' muckle din there was about it,
Baith loud and lang.

Some herds, well learn'd upo' the beuk, Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk; For 'twas the auld moon turn'd a neuk, An' out o' sight;

An' backlins-comin, to the leuk,

She grew mair bright.

This was deny'd, it was affirm'd;
The herds an' hissels were alarmed;

The rev'rend gray-beards rav'd an' storm'd,
That beardless laddies

Should think they better were inform'd

Than their auld daddies.

Frae less to mair it gaed to sticks; Frae words an' aiths to clours an' nicks; An' monie a fallow gat his licks,

Wi' hearty crunt;

An' some, to learn them for their tricks,
Were hang'd an' brunt.

This game was play'd in monie lands,
An' auld-light caddies bure sic hands,
That, faith, the youngsters took the sands,
on Wi' nimble shanks,

The lairds forbade, by strict commands,
Sie bluidy pranks.

But new-light herds gat sic a cowe, Folk thought them ruin'd stick-an-stowe, Till now amaist on ev'ry knowe,

Ye'll find ane plac'd;

An' some, their new-light fair avow,

Just quite barefac'd.

Nae doubt the auld-light flocks are bleatin; Their zealous herds are vex'd and sweatin ; Mysel, I've even seen them greetin

To hear the moon sae sadly lie'd on
By word an' write.

But shortly they will cowe the louns! Some auld-light herds in neebor towns Are mind't, in things they ca' balloons,

An' stay a month

To tak a flight,

amang the moons An' see them right.

Guid observation they will gie them; An' when the auld moon's gaun to lea'e them,