Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;

How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,

Had not on earth whereon to lay His head:

How His first followers and servants sped;

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:

How he, who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand; And heard great Babylon's doom pro

nounced by Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King,

The saint, the father, and the husband prays:

Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing," "1

That thus they all shall meet in future days:

There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling time moves round in an
eternal sphere.

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride,

In all the pomp of method, and of art, When men display to congregations

wide

Devotion's every grace, except the heart! The Power, incensed, the pageant will

desert,

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;

But haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul;

And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol.

1 Pope's Windsor Forest.-R. B.

Then homeward all take off their several way;

The youngling cottagers retire to rest: The parent-pair their secret homage pay. And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,

That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest,

And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,

For them, and for their little ones provide;

But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,

That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:

Princes and lords are but the breath of kings;

"An honest man's the noblest work of God: "

And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road,

The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,

Disguising oft the wretch of human

In love and freedom they rejoice, Wi' care nor thrall opprest.

Now blooms the lily by the bank,

The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae;
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang.

I was the Queen o' bonnie France,
Where happy I hae been;
Fu' lightly rase I in the morn,
As blythe lay down at e'en:
And I'm the sovereign of Scotland,
And monie a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands,
And never ending care.

My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine;
And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er wad blink on mine!
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 morn!
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn!
And in the narrow house o' death
Let winter round me rave;

And the next flowers that deck the spring

Bloom on my peaceful grave!

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY,

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN
APRIL, 1786.

WEE, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem.

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine - no distant date; Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, Full on thy bloom,

Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, Shall be thy doom!

TO A MOUSE,

ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH IN NOVEMBER.

WEE, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie ! Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!1

I wad be laith2 to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle! 3

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion, An' fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie,thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave 5

'S a sma' request: I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,6 And never miss't.

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the winds are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter pass'd
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,