May Kennedy's far-honoured name

Lang beet his hymeneal flame,
Till Hamiltons, at least a dizen,
Are frae their nuptial labours risen:
Five bonnie lasses round their table,
And seven braw fellows, stout and able
To serve their king and country weel,
By word, or pen, or pointed steel!

THE LAMENT.

OCCASIONED BY THE UNFORTUNATE ISSUE OF A FRIEND'S AMOUR.

[The mention of the "friend," here, was the merest blind-this passionate lament having reference exclusively to the agonizing commencement of his own life-long connection with Jean Armour, from first to last the one great dominant

Shine on the evening o' his days;
Till his wee curlie John's ier-oe,
When ebbing life nae mair shall flow,
The last, sad, mournful rites bestow!"

I will not wind a lang conclusion
Wi' complimentary effusion:
But whilst your wishes and endeavours
Are blest with Fortune's smiles and
favours,

I am, dear Sir, with zeal most fervent,
Your much indebted, humble servant.

But if (which Powers above prevent!)
That iron-hearted carl, Want,
Attended in his grim advances

By sad mistakes, and black mischances, While hopes, and joys, and pleasures fly him,

Make you as poor a dog as I am,
Your humble servant then no more;
For who would humbly serve the poor!
But by a poor man's hopes in heaven!
While recollection's power is given,
If, in the vale of humble life,
The victim sad of Fortune's strife,
I, through the tender gushing tear,
Should recognize my master dear,
If friendless, low, we meet together,
Then, Sir, your hand-my friend and
brother!

—0—

immeasurably surpassing the rapt ideal of his tenderness for the pale memory of Highland Mary.]

Alas! how oft does Goodness wound itself, And sweet affection prove the spring of woe! -HOME.

O THOU pale orb, that silent shines, While care-untroubled mortals sleep! Thou seest a wretch that inly pines,

And wanders here to wail and weep! With woe I nightly vigils keep,

Beneath thy wan unwarming beam; And mourn, in lamentation deep, How life and love are all a dream.

I joyless view thy rays adorn

The faintly marked distant hill :
I joyless view thy trembling horn
Reflected in the gurgling rill,
My fondly fluttering heart, be still!
Thou busy power, Remembrance,
cease!

Ah! must the agonizing thrill
For ever bar returning peace!

No idly-feigned poetic pains,

My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim; No shepherd's pipe-Arcadian strains; No fabled tortures, quaint and tame : The plighted faith; the mutual flame; The oft-attested Powers above; The promised father's tender name; These were the pledges of my love!

day,

Awakes me up to toil and woe: I see the hours in long array,

That I must suffer, lingering, slow. Full many a pang, and many a throe,

Keen recollection's direful train, Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low,

Shall kiss the distant, western main.

And when my nightly couch I try,

Sore harassed out with care and grief, My toi!-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye, Keep watchings with the nightly thief:

At whose destruction-breathing word
The mightiest empires fall!

Thy cruel, woe-delighted train,

The ministers of grief and pain,
A sullen welcome, all !

With stern-resolved, despairing eye,
I see each aimèd dart;

For one has cut my dearest tie,
And quivers in my heart.

Then lowering and pouring,

The storm no more I dread; Though thickening, and blackening, Round my devoted head.

K

And thou grim power, by life abhorred,
While life a pleasure can afford,
Oh, hear a wretch's prayer!
No more I shrink appalled, afraid;
I court, I beg thy friendly aid,
To close this scene of care!
When shall my soul, in silent peace,
Resign life's joyless day;

My weary heart its throbbing cease,
Cold mould'ring in the clay?

No fear more, no tear more,
To stain my lifeless face;
Enclasped, and grasped

Within thy cold embrace!

LINES WRITTEN ON A BANK

NOTE.

WAE worth thy power, thou cursed leaf!
Fell source o' a' my woe and grief!
For lack o' thee I've lost my lass!
For lack o' thee I scrimp my glass!
I see the children of affliction
Unaided, through thy cursed restriction.
I've seen th' oppressor's cruel smile,
Amid his hapless victim's spoil,
And, for thy potence vainly wished
To crush the villain in the dust.

For lack o' thee, I leave this much-loved shore,

Never, perhaps, to greet auld Scotland

more !

ON A SCOTCH BARD,

GONE TO THE WEST INDIES.

[Written in 1786, when Burns fully intended crossing the Atlantic to Jamaica. The fifth line in one manuscript copy of the poem, ran quite frankly thus: "Our billie, Rob, has ta'en a jink."]

A' YE wha live by sowps o' drink,
A' ye wha live by crambo-clink,
A' ye wha live and never think,

Come, mourn wi' me!

Our billie's gi'en us a' a jink,

An' owre the sea.

Lament him a' ye rantin' core,
Wha dearly like a random splore,
Nae mair he 'll join the merry roar
In social key;
For now he's ta'en anither shore,
An' owre the sea.

The bonnie lasses weel may wiss him,
And in their dear petitions place him:
The widows, wives, an' a' may bless
him,
Wi' tearfu' e'e;
For weel I wat they 'll sairly miss him
That's owre the sea.

O Fortune, they ha'e room to grumble! Hadst thou ta'en aff some drowsy bumble,

Wha can do nought but fyke and fumble, 'T wad been nae plea; But he was gleg as ony wumble,

That's owre the sea.

Auld cantie Kyle may weepers wear,
An' stain them wi' the saut, saut tear;
'T will mak' her poor auld heart, I fear,
In flinders flee;

He was her laureate monie a year,

That 's owre the sea.

He saw misfortune's cauld nor'-west
Lang mustering up a bitter blast;
A jillet brak his heart at last,
Ill may she be !
So, took a berth afore the mast,
And owre the sea.

To tremble under Fortune's cummock,
On scarce a bellyfu' o' drummock,
Wi' his proud, independent stomach
Could ill agree;

So, row't his hurdies in a hammock,
And owre the sea.

He ne'er was gi'en to great misguiding,
Yet coin his pouches wad na bide in ;
Wi' him it ne'er was under hiding-
He dealt it free:

The Muse was a' that he took pride in,
That's owre the sea.

Jamaica bodies, use him weel,

An' hap him in a cozie biel:
Ye'll find him aye a dainty chiel,
And fu' o' glee ;
He wad na wranged the vera de'il,
That's owre the sea.

Fareweel, my rhyme-composing billie!
Your native soil was right ill-willie ;
But may ye flourish like a lily,
Now bonnilie!

I'll toast ye in my hind'most gillie,
Though owre the sea.

TO AN OLD SWEETHEART AFTER HER MARRIAGE.

WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF OF A COPY OF HIS POEMS PRESENTED TO THE LADY.

[Peggy Thomson of Kirkoswald was the old sweetheart here referred to, and not as Isabel Burns, afterwards Mrs. Begg, erroneously imagined, the Lass of Cessnock Banks. The identity of Peggy Thomson as the old sweetheart is put beyond dispute by the Glenriddel manu script, wherein Burns himself has written

Poor Peggy! Her husband is my old acquaintance, and a most worthy fellow. When I was taking leave of my Carrick friends, intending to go to the West Indies, I took farewell of her, but neither of us could speak a syllable."]

ONCE fondly loved, and still remembered dear!

Sweet early object of my vouthful

Vows!

Accept this mark of friendship, warm, sincere,

Friendship! 't is all cold duty now allows.

And when you read the simple, artless rhymes,

One friendly sigh for him-he asks no

more

Who distant burns in flaming torrid climes,

Or haply lies beneath th' Atlantic's

roar.

THE CALF.

To the Rev. JAMES STEVEN, on his text, MALACHI, ch. iv. ver. 2:-"And they shall go forth, and grow up, like CALVES of the stall."

[Hearing a sermon delivered upon this preposterous text, on Sunday the 3rd of September, 1788, the very day upon which Jean Burns (née Armour) was delivered of twins, the Poet, for the amusement of his friend, Gavin Hamilton, sum

marized the discourse on the spur of the moment in these scathing lines. It has been remarked that, although dashed off almost extempore, it is, nevertheless, one of Burns's most finished productions. The Rev. James Steven later on became for a time minister at the Scotch Church in Crown Court, Covent Garden : and as indicative of how the name stuck to him as tenaciously as a bur, we find one of the Poet's younger brothers writing to him from London, under date the 21st of March. 1790-"We were at Covent Garden Chapel this afternoon to hear the Calf preach : he is grown very fat, and is as boisterous as ever."]

RIGHT, Sir! your text I'll prove it true,
Though heretics may laugh;
For instance, there's yoursel' just now,
God knows, an unco calf!

And should some patron be so kind As bless you wi' a kirk,

I doubt na, Sir, but then we 'll find Ye're still as great a stirk.

But, if the lover's raptured hour
Shall ever be your lot,
Forbid it, every heavenly power,
You e'er should be a stot!

Though, when some kind, connubial dear,

Your but-and-ben adorns,

The like has been that you may wear
A noble head of horns!

And in your lug, most reverend James, To hear you roar and rowte,

And when ye 're numbered wi' the dead, Below a grassy hillock,

Wi' justice they may mark your head"Here lies a famous bullock!"

-0

And binds the mire up like a rock; When to the lochs the curlers flock Wi' gleesome speed, Wha will they station at the cock ?— Tam Samson 's dead!

He was the king o' a' the core,
To guard, or draw, or wick a bore;