As for your priesthood, I shall say but Oh, had M'Lauchlan, thairm-inspiring Or gathered liberal views in bonds and But all the soul of Music's self was seisins. If haply Knowledge, on a random tramp, Had shored them with a glimmer of his lamp, And would to Common-sense, for once betrayed them, heard ; Harmonious concert rung in every part, While simple melody poured moving on the heart. Plain, dull Stupidity stept kindly in to The Genius of the Stream in front ap aid them. pears, A venerable chief advanced in years; What farther clishmaclaver might been His hoary head with water-lilies crowned, Bright to the moon their various dresses And Summer, with his fervid-beaming . Next followed Courage, with his martial I've even joined the honoured jorum stride, From where the Feal wild woody coverts hide; Benevolence, with mild, benignant air, A female form, came from the towers of Stair: When mighty squireships o' the quorum Their hydra drouth did sloken. But wi' a lord!-stand out, my shin: Learning and Worth in equal measures And sic a lord !-lang Scotch ells twa, trode From simple Catrine, their long-loved abode : Last, white-robed Peace, crowned with a hazel wreath, To rustic Agriculture did bequeath LINES ON MEETING WITH LORD DAER. [The meeting here celebrated took place at Catrine, the country mansion of Professor Dugald Stewart. Lord Daer, who was the eldest son of the fourth Earl of Selkirk, and who had been a pupil of Dugald Stewart's, died pre maturely on the 5th November, 1794, of consumption. The grace of his frank and genial bearing towards Burns, when they made each other's acquaintance, produced upon the latter the most agreeable and enduring impression.] THIS wot ye all whom it concerns, A ne'er-to-be-forgotten day! I've been at drucken writers' feasts, Nay, been bitch fou 'mang godly priests; (Wi' reverence be it spoken !) Our peerage he o'erlooks them a', But, oh! for Hogarth's magic power! And how he stared and stammered When goavan, as if led wi' branks, And stumpin' on his ploughman shanks, He in the parlour hammered. To meet good Stewart little pain is, My knees on ane anither knoited, I sidling sheltered in a nook, Like some portentous omen; I marked nought uncommon. I watched for symptoms o' the great, One rank as weel's another; EPISTLE TO MAJOR WILLIAM May still your life from day to day LOGAN. Nae lente largo in the play, [This epistle only came to light in 1828, when Harmonious flow, Encore! Bravo! it was found in an old cabinet at Park House, A sweeping, kindling, bauld strathspeynear Ayr, among the papers of Major Logan. The latter was a military officer who, having withdrawn from the service, resided with his mother and sister in the country house just mentioned, where, besides indulging his wit and humour to his heart's content in social carousing, he attained great proficiency as a violinist. The fact of the third stanza of this epistle being all but identical with the second stanza of the second epistle to Davie, will be at once recognized.] HAIL, thairm-inspirin', rattlin' Willie ! To every fiddling, rhyming billie, When idly goavan whyles we saunter, Arrests us, then the scaith and banter Hale be your heart! hale be your fiddle! Until you on a cummock driddle Come wealth, come poortith, late or soon, A blessing on the cheery gang And never think o' right and wrang Are wise or fool! My hand-waled curse keep hard in chase Their tuneless hearts! But come, your hand, my careless brither I' the ither warl', if there's anither- We've faults and failings — granted We're frail backsliding mortals merely, Heaven send your heart-strings aye in Ochon! for poor Castalian drinkers, [William Chalmers, a writer to the signet in Ayr, having asked Burns to write a poetical epistle for him to a young lady to whom he was paying his addresses, the Poet, whose heart I doubt na Fortune may you shore Some mim-mou'd pouthered priestie, Fu' lifted up wi' Hebrew lore, And band upon his breastie; But oh! what signifies to you His lexicons and grammars; The feeling heart's the royal blue, And that's wi' Willie Chalmers. always overflowed with sympathy for those who Some gapin', glowrin' countra laird were under the influence of the master passion, penned the following stanzas.] MADAM, Wi' braw new branks in mickle pride, And eke a braw new brechan, My Pegasus I'm got astride, May warsle for your favour; May claw his lug, and straik his beard, And hoast up some palaver: My bonnie maid, before ye wed Sic clumsy-witted hammers, Seek Heaven for help, and barefit skelp Awa' wi' Willie Chalmers. |