ON A SCHOOLMASTER IN CLEISH

PARISH, FIFESHIRE.

HERE lie Willie Michie's banes ;
O Satan, when ye tak him,
Gie him the schoolin' of your weans,
For clever De'ils he'll mak them!

LINES

WRITTEN AND PRESENTED TO MRS. KEMBLE, ON SEEING HER IN THE CHARACTER OF YARICO.

Dumfries Theatre, 1794.

KEMBLE, thou cur'st my unbelief
Of Moses and his rod;

At Yarico's sweet notes of grief
The rock with tears had flow'd.

I MURDER hate by field or flood,
Tho' glory's name may screen us;
In wars at hame I'll spend my blood,
Life-giving war of Venus.

The deities that I adore

Are social Peace and Plenty,

I'm better pleased to make one more,
Than be the death of twenty.

LINES

WRITTEN ON A WINDOW, AT THE KING'S ARMS TAVERN, DUMFRIES.

YE men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering 'Gainst poor Excisemen? give the cause a hearing; What are your landlords' rent-rolls? taxing ledgers: What premiers, what? even Monarchs' mighty gaugers:

Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wise men?

What are they, pray, but spiritual Excisemen ?

LINES

WRITTEN ON THE WINDOW

OF THE GLOBE

TAVERN, DUMFRIES.

THE graybeard, Old Wisdom, may boast of his

treasures,

Give me with gay Folly to live:

I grant him his calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures, But Folly has raptures to give.

EXTEMPORE IN THE COURT OF
SESSION.

TUNE-'KILLIECRANKIE.'

LORD ADVOCATE.

HE clench'd his pamphlets in his fist,
He quoted and he hinted,

Till in a declamation-mist,
His argument he tint it :
He gaped for't, he graped for't,
He fand it was awa, man ;

But what his common sense came short,
He eked out wi' law, man.

MR. ERSKINE.

Collected Harry stood awee,

Then open'd out his arm, man ;
His lordship sat wi' ruefu' e'e,

And ey'd the gathering storm, man :
Like wind-driv'n hail it did assail,

Or torrents owre a linn, man ;
The Bench sae wise, lift up their eyes,
Half-wauken'd wi' the din, man.

LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE PICTURE
OF THE CELEBRATED MISS BURNS.

CEASE, ye prudes, your envious railing,
Lovely Burns has charms-confess :

True it is, she had one failing,

Had a woman ever less?

`ON MISS J. SCOTT, OF AVR.

OH! had each Scot of ancient times
Been, Jeanie Scott, as thou art,
The bravest heart on English ground
Had yielded like a coward.

EPIGRAM ON CAPTAIN FRANCIS GROSE,

THE CELEBRATED ANTIQUARY.

THE Devil got notice that Grose was a-dying,
So whip at the summons, old Satan came flying;
But when he approach'd where poor Francis lay
moaning,

And saw each bed-post with its burden a-groaning,
Astonish'd! confounded! cry'd Satan,' By God,
I'll want 'im, ere I take such a damnable load.'

EPIGRAM ON ELPHINSTONE'S TRANSLATION OF MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS.

O THOU whom Poetry abhors,

Whom Prose had turned out of doors,

Heard'st thou that groan?-proceed no further, 'Twas laurel'd Martial roaring murther.

EPITAPH ON A COUNTRY LAIRD, NOT QUITE SO WISE AS SOLOMON.

BLESS Jesus Christ, O Cardoness,

With grateful lifted eyes,

Who said that not the soul alone,
But body too, must rise:

For had he said, 'The soul alone
From death I will deliver,'

Alas, alas! O Cardoness,

Then thou hadst slept for ever!

EPITAPH ON A NOISY POLEMIC.

BELOW thir stanes lie Jamie's banes :
O Death, it's my opinion,

Thou ne'er took such a bleth'rin' bitch
Into thy dark dominion! -

EPITAPH ON WEE JOHNNY.

Hic jacet wee Johnny.

WHOE'ER thou art, O reader, know
That death has murder'd Johnie !
An' here his body lies fu' low-
For saul he ne'er had ony.

EPITAPH ON A CELEBRATED RULING

ELDER.

HERE sowter Hood in Death does sleep;

To Hell, if he's gane thither,

Satan, gie him thy gear to keep,

He'll haud it weel thegither.

EPITAPH FOR ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ.

KNOW thou, O stranger to the fame
Of this much lov'd, much honour'd name,
(For none that knew him need be told)
A warmer heart death ne'er made cold.