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TO THE OWL.

[According to Burns these verses were the production of one John M'Creddie: but no person

Is beauty less, when down the glowing cheek

Sad, piteous tears, in native sorrows fall?

bearing that name has ever claimed the author- Less kind the heart when anguish bids

ship. Cromek, the collector of the Reliques,

was strongly of opinion, everything considered, that they were from the hand of Burns himself,

and they were unquestionably found among his

it break?

Less happy he who lists to pity's call?

papers in holograph, with emendations and inter- Ah, no, sad Owl! nor is thy voice less

lineations.]

SAD bird of night, what sorrows call thee forth,

sweet,

That sadness tunes it, and that grief is there ;

To vent thy plaints thus in the mid- That Spring's gay notes, unskilled, thou

night hour?

Is it some blast that gathers in the north,
Threatening to nip the verdure of thy

bower?

Is it, sad Owl, that Autumn strips the shade,

canst repeat;

That sorrow bids thee to the gloom repair.

Nor that the treble songsters of the day Are quite estranged, sad bird of night! from thee;

And leaves thee here, unsheltered and Nor that the thrush deserts the evening

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Than ever lover to the nightingale;

And pleased in sorrow listen to thy Or drooping wretch, oppressed with

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VERSES TO MY BED.

[Years after Burns had written these lines, the Count Xavier de Maistre articulated the

same thought more epigrammatically in his

"Expédition Nocturne autour de ma Chambre," where he wrote in the fifth chapter-" Our bed witnesses our birth and our death: it is a cradle scattered over with flowers; it is the throne of love; it is a sepulchre.]

THOU Bed, in which I first began
To be that various creature-Man!
And when again the fates decree
The place where I must cease to be;
When sickness comes, to whom I fly,
To soothe my pain, or close mine eye,
When cares surround me where I weep,
Or lose them all in balmy sleep;
When sore with labour, whom I court,
And to thy downy breast resort;
Where, too, ecstatic joys I find,
When deigns my Delia to be kind-
And full of love, in all her charms,
Thou giv'st the fair one to my arms.
The centre thou, where grief and pain,
Disease and rest, alternate reign.
Oh, since within thy little space
So many various scenes take place;
Lessons as useful shalt thou teach,
As sages dictate-churchmen preach;
And man, convinced by thee alone,
This great important truth shall own:-
That thin partitions do divide

The bounds where good and ill reside;
That nought is perfect here below;
But bliss still bord'ring upon woe.

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And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?

Thou Nature! partial Nature! I arraign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain.
The lion and the bull thy care have
found,

One shakes the forest, and one spurns the ground:

Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell,

Th' envenomed wasp, victorious, guards his cell;

Thy minions, kings defend, control, devour,

In all th' omnipotence of rule and power!

Foxes and statesmen subtle wiles ensure; The cit and polecat stink, and are secure; Toads with their poison, doctors with

their drug,

The priest and hedgehog in their robes

are snug;

Ev'n silly woman has her warlike arts,

Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear

and darts ;

But, oh! thou bitter step-mother and Till, fled each hope that once his bosom hard,

fired,

To thy poor, fenceless, naked child-the And fled each Muse that glorious once Bard!

A thing unteachable in worldly skill,

And half an idiot too, more helpless still;

inspired,

Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age,

Dead, even resentment for his injured page,

No heels to bear him from the op'ning He heeds or feels no more the ruthless

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Vampyre booksellers drain him to the Thy sons ne'er madden in the fierce ex

heart,

the

tremes

And scorpion critics cureless venom dart. Of Fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams. If mantling high she fills the golden cup, With sober selfish ease they sip it up: Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve,

Critics! appalled I venture on

name,

Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of

fame :

Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes!

He hacks to teach, they mangle to ex

pose.

They only wonder "some folks" do not starve,

The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog,

And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog.

His heart by causeless, wanton malice When disappointment snaps the clue of

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By blockheads' daring into madness And through disastrous night they dark

ling grope,

stung; His well-won bays, than life itself more With deaf endurance sluggishly they dear, bear, By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig And just conclude that Fortune's care."

must wear:

"fools are

Foiled, bleeding, tortured, in th' unequal So, heavy, passive to the tempest's strife,

shocks,

The hapless Poet flounders on through Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid

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Not so the idle Muses' madcap train,

Not such the workings of their moonstruck brain;

In equanimity they never dwell,

Thou orb of day! thou other paler light!

And all the other sparkling stars of night;

By turns in soaring heaven, or vaulted | If aught that giver from my mind efface; hell. If I that giver's bounty e'er disgrace, Then roll to me along your wandering spheres,

I dread thee, Fate, relentless and severe,
With all a poet's, husband's, father's
fear!

Already one stronghold of hope is lost,
Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust;
(Fled, like the sun eclipsed as noon
appears,

And left us darkling in a world of tears :)
Oh hear my ardent, grateful, selfish
prayer!—

Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare!

Through a long life his hopes and wishes

crown ;

And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down!

May bliss domestic smooth his private path;

Give energy to life, and soothe his latest breath,

Only to number out a villain's years!

ON

CAPTAIN GROSE'S PEREGRINA.
TIONS THROUGH SCOTLAND,

COLLECTING THE ANTIQUITIES OF THAT
KINGDOM.

[Captain Francis Grose, son of a jeweller at Richmond, in Surrey, was Born there in 1743, dying forty-eight years afterwards very suddenly,

of apoplexy, on the 12th of May, 1791, at Dublin. Having, by reason of his utter carelessness in regard to money, been reduced to poverty at thirty years of age (by which time through good living he had become a perfect wonder

With many a filial tear circling the bed of obesity) he turned artist and antiquary

of death!

THIRD EPISTLE TO ROBERT
GRAHAM, ESQ., OF FINTRY.

I CALL no goddess to inspire my strains,
A fabled Muse may suit a bard that
feigns;

producing between 1773 and 1788, in eight quarto volumes, his "Antiquities of England and Wales," embellished by nearly six hundred views of his own drawing. Travelling in Scotland, pen and pencil alternately in his hand, for the continuation of this opus magnum, he met Burns at Mr. Riddel's residence of Friar's Carse. The humourists-poet and antiquarytook to each other immensely. Grose's jovial face and figure were of themselves provocative of merriment. And the lovers of Burns can have

no other than kindly feelings towards Captain Grose, if only in grateful remembrance of the fact that, thanks to his intimacy with the Poet, "Tam o'Shanter was written, and first pub

Friend of my life! my ardent spirit lished in "The Antiquities of Scotland."]

burns,

And all the tribute of my heart returns,
For boons accorded, goodness ever new,
The gift still dearer, as the giver, you.

HEAR, Land o' Cakes, and brither

Scots,

Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's;

If there's a hole in a' your coats,
I rede you tent it;

A chiel's amang you taking notes,
And, faith, he'll prent it.

If in your bounds ye chance to light
Upon a fine, fat, fodgel wight,
O' stature short, but genius bright,
That's he, mark weel-
And wow! he has an unco slight
O' cauk and keel.

By some auld houlet-haunted biggin',
Or kirk deserted by its riggin',
It's ten to ane ye 'll find him snug in
Some eldritch part,

Of Eve's first fire he has a cinder;
Auld Tubulcain's fire-shool and fender;
That which distinguished the gender
O' Balaam's ass;

A broom-stick o' the witch of Endor,
Weel shod wi' brass.

Forbye, he'll shape you aff, fu' gleg,
The cut of Adam's philabeg;
The knife that nicket Abel's craig
He'll prove you fully,

It was a faulding jocteleg,
Or lang-kail gully.

But wad ye see him in his glee, For meikle glee and fun has he,

Wi' de'ils, they say, Lord save 's! col- Then set him down, and twa or three

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Guid fellows wi' him;

And port, O port! shine thou a wee, And then ye'll see him!

Now, by the powers o' verse and prose, Thou art a dainty chiel, O Grose ! Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose,

They sair misca' thee; I'd take the rascal by the nose, Wad say, Shame fa' thee!

LINES WRITTEN IN A WRAPPER, ENCLOSING A LETTER TO CAPTAIN GROose.

[An impromptu addressed to another antiquary, by name Cardonnel, whose skill as a numismatist drew from Burns the allusion in the last stanza.]

Wad haud the Lothians three in tackets, KEN ye ought o' Captain Grose?

A towmont guid;

Before the Flood.

Igo and ago,

And parritch-pats, and auld saut-backets, If he's amang his friends or foes?

Iram, coram, dago.

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