Lost innocence, or cancel follies past;
But it has peace, and much secures the mind
From all assaults of evil, proving still
A faithful barrier, not o'erleaped with ease
By vicious custom, raging uncontrolled
Abroad, and desolating public life.
When fierce temptation, seconded within
By traitor appetite, and armed with darts
Tempered in hell, invades the throbbing
breast,

To combat may be glorious, and success
Perhaps may crown us; but to fly is safe.
Had I the choice of sublunary good,
What could I wish, that I possess not here?
Health, leisure, means to improve it, friend-
ship, peace;
[muse,
No loose or wanton though a wandering
And constant occupation without care.
Thus blest, I draw a picture of that bliss;
Hopeless indeed that dissipated minds,
And profligate abusers of a world
Created fair so much in vain for them,
Should seek the guiltless joys that I de-
scribe,

Allured by my report; but sure no less
That, self-condemned, they must neglect
the prize,
[approve.

And what they will not taste must yet

In the deep dungeon of some Gothic dome,
Where night and desolation ever frown.
Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,
Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,
With here and there a violet bestrown,
Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring
wave,
[o'er my grave.

And many an evening sun shine sweetly

And thither let the village swain repair, And, light of heart, the village maiden gay, To deck with flowers her half-dishevelled hair,

And celebrate the merry morn of May. There let the shepherd's pipe the livelong day [woe;

Fill all the grove with love's bewitching And when mild evening comes with mantle grey, [go,

Let not the blooming band make haste to Nor ghost nor spell my long and last abode shall know.

:0:

TOBIAS SMOLLETT.

1721-1771.

THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND. MOURN, hapless Caledonia, mourn Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!

Thy sons, for valour long renowned,
Lie slaughtered on their native ground;
Thy hospitable roofs no more
Invite the stranger to the door;
In smoky ruins sunk they lie,
The monuments of cruelty.

The wretched owner sees afar
His all become the prey of war;
Bethinks him of his babes and wife,
Then smites his breast, and curses life.
Thy swains are famished on the rocks
Where once they fed their wanton flocks;
Thy ravished virgins shriek in vain,
Thy infants perish on the plain.

What boots it, then, in every clime,
Through the wide-spreading waste of time,
Thy martial glory, crowned with praise,
Still shone with undiminished blaze?
Thy towering spirit now is broke,
Thy neck is bended to the yoke,
What foreign arms could never quell,
By civil rage and rancour fell.

The rural pipe and merry lay
No more shall cheer the happy day;
No social scenes of gay delight
Beguile the dreary winter night;
No strains but those of sorrow flow,
And nought be heard save sounds of woe,
While the pale phantoms of the slain
Glide nightly o'er the silent plain.
Oh, baneful cause! oh, fatal morn!
Accursed to ages yet unborn!
The sons against their fathers stood,
The parent shed his children's blood.
Yet, when the rage of battle ceased,
The victor's soul was not appeased;
The naked and forlorn must feel
Devouring flames and murdering steel.
The pious mother doomed to death,
Forsaken, wanders o'er the heath;
The bleak wind whistles round her head,
Her helpless orphans cry for bread.
Bereft of shelter, food and friend,
She views the shades of night descend,
And, stretched beneath the inclement skies,
Weeps o'er her tender babes-and dies.

While the warm blood bedews my veins,
And unimpaired remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country's fate
Within my filial breast shall beat;
And, spite of her insulting foe,
My sympathizing verse shall flow.

Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn!

Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!"

ROBERT BURNS.

1759-1796.

LAMENT OF

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS,
ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING.
NOW NATURE hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,

And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea;

Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;

But nought can glad the wearied wight That fast in durance lies.

Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing;

The merle, in his noontide bower,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis mild, wi' many a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest:
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 ha'e been;
Fu' lightly raise I in the morn,

As blithe lay down at e'en:
And I'm the sovereign of Scotland,
And mony a traitor there,
Yet here I lie in foreign bands
And never-ending care.

But as for thee, thou false woman,
My sister and my fae,
Grim vengeance yet shall whet a sword
That through thy soul shall gae:
The weeping blood in woman's breast
Was never known to thee,

Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe
Frae woman's pitying e'e.

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!

LAMENT FOR

JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN.

THE wind blew hollow frae the hills,
By fits the sun's departing beam
Looked on the fading yellow woods
That waved o'er Lugar's winding stream:
Beneath a craigy steep, a bard,

Laden with years and meikle pain,
In loud lament bewailed his lord,

Whom death had all untimely ta'en.

He leaned him to an ancient aik, [years; Whose trunk was mouldering down with His locks were bleachèd white wi' time,

His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears! And as he touched his trembling harp, And as he tuned his doleful sang, The winds, lamenting through their caves, To echo bore the notes alang.

"Ye scattered birds that faintly sing, The reliques of the vernal quire! Ye woods that shed on a the winds

The honours of the agèd year! A few short months, and glad and gay, Again ye 'll charm the ear and e'e; But nocht in all revolving time

Can gladness bring again to me.

"I am a bending, agèd tree,

That long has stood the wind and rain; But now has come a cruel blast,

And my last hald of earth is gane:
Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring,
Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom;
But I maun lie before the storm,
And ithers plant them in my room.

"I've seen sae mony changefu' years,
On earth I am a stranger grown;
I wander in the ways of men,
Alike unknowing and unknown:
Unheard, unpitied, unrelieved,

I bear alane my lade o' care,
For silent, low, on beds of dust
Lie a' that would my sorrows share.

"And last (the sum of a' my griefs!)
My noble master lies in clay;
The flower amang our barons bold,
His country's pride, his country's stay:
In weary being now I pine,

For a' the life of life is dead,
And hope has left my agèd ken,
On forward wing for ever fled.

"Awake thy last sad voice, my harp! The voice of woe and wild despair! Awake, resound thy latest lay,

Then sleep in silence evermair! And thou, my last, best, only friend, That fillest an untimely tomb, Accept this tribute from the Bard Thou brought from fortune's mirkest gloom.

"In poverty's low barren vale,

Thick mists obscure involved me round; Though oft I turned the wistful eye,

Nae ray of fame was to be found: Thou found'st me, like the morning sun That melts the fogs in limpid air,The friendless Bard and rustic song Became alike thy fostering care.

'Oh, why has worth so short a date, While villains ripen grey with time? Must thou, the noble, generous, great, Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime? Why did I live to see that day,

A day to me so full of woe?
Oh, had I met the mortal shaft
Which laid my benefactor low!

"The bridegroom may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been;
The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And a' that thou hast done for me!"

IS THERE, FOR HONEST POVERTY.

Tune-" For a' that and a' that."

IS THERE, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by,-
We dare be poor for a' that!

GEORGE CRABBE.

1754-1832.

TIME'S CHANGES.

"COME, lead me, lassie, to the shade,
Where willows grow beside the brook;
For well I know the sound it made
When dashing o'er the stony rill-
It murmured to St. Osyth's Mill."

The lass replied, "The trees are fled,
They've cut the brook a straighter bed:
No shades the present lords allow,
The miller only murmurs now
The waters now his mill forsake,
And form a pond they call a lake."

"Then, lassie, lead thy grandsire on,
And to the holy water bring;
A cup is fastened to the stone,

And I would taste the healing spring,
That soon its rocky cist forsakes,
And green its mossy passage makes."

"The holy spring is turned aside,
The arch is gone, the stream is dried;
The plough has levelled all around,
And here is now no holy ground."

"Then lass, thy grandsire's footsteps guide
To Bulmer's Tree, the giant oak,
Whose boughs the keeper's cottage hide,
And part the church-way lane o'erlook.
A boy, I climbed the topmost bough,
And I would feel its shadow now.

"Or, lassie, lead me to the west,
Where grew the elm-trees thick and tall,
Where rooks unnumbered build their nest-
Deliberate birds, and prudent all;
Their notes, indeed, are harsh and rude,
But they're a social multitude."

"The rooks are shot, the trees are felled,
And nest and nursery all expelled;
With better fate the giant tree,
Old Bulmer's Oak, is gone to sea.
The church-way walk is now no more,
And men must other ways explore:
Though this indeed promotion gains,
For this the park's new wall contains;
And here, I fear, we shall not meet
A shade, although, perchance, a seat.

"Oh, then, my lassie, lead the way
To Comfort's Home, the ancient inn:
That something holds, if we can pay-
Old David is our living kin;

A servant once, he still preserves His name, and in his office serves.

"

'Alas, that mine should be the fate Old David's sorrows to relate! But they were brief: not long before He died, his office was no more; The kennel stands upon the ground, With something of the former sound." "Oh, then," the grieving man replied, 'No farther, lassie, let me stray; Here's nothing left of ancient pride,

Of what was grand, of what was gay; But all is changed, is lost, is soldAll, all that's left is chilling cold; I seek for comfort here in vain, Then lead me to my cot again!"