That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth!
Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exil'd?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child?

Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild!

But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food:
The soupe
their only hawkie does afford,

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; The dame brings forth in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell, An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid;

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell How 't was a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride: His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care;

And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest

aim:

Perhaps "Dundee's" wild warbling measures rise,

Or plaintive "Martyrs," worthy of the name; Or noble "Elgin" beets the heav'nward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame;

The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; Or how the royal Bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging

ire;

Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
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 Heav'n 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 Bab'lou's doom pronounced by Heav'n's command.

Then kneeling down, to Heav'n's Eternal King,

The saint, the father, and the husband prays: Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing," That thus they all shall meet in future days: There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter fear, Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride, In all the pomp of method, and of art, When men display to congregations wide Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart! The Pow'r, incens'd, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; But haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul;

And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol.

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
Aud proffer up to Heav'n the warm request,
That He, who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry 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 lov'd at home, rever'd 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 heav'nly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd!

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!

Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!

And, oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,

A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their muchlov'd Isle.