XXXIII.

ADDRESS

TO AN ILLEGITIMATE CHILD.

[This hasty and not very decorous effusion was originally entitled "The Poet's Welcome; or, Rab the Rhymer's Address to his Bastard Child." A copy, with the more softened but less expressive title, was published by Stewart, in 1801, and is alluded to by Burns himself, in his biographical letter to Moore. "Bonnie Betty," the mother of the "sonsie-smirking, dear-bought Bess," of the Inventory, lived in Largieside: to support this daughter the poet made over the copyright of his works when he proposed to go to the West Indies. She lived to be a woman, and to marry one John Bishop, overseer at Polkemmet, where she died in 1817. It is said she resembled Burns quite as much as any of the rest of his children.]

THOU's welcome, wean, mishanter fa' me,
If ought of thee, or of thy mammy,
Shall ever daunton me, or awe me,
My sweet wee lady,
Or if I blush when thou shalt ca' me
Tit-ta or daddy.

Wee image of my bonny Betty,
I, fatherly, will kiss an' daut thee,
As dear an' near my heart I set thee
Wi' as gude will
As a' the priests had seen me get thee
That's out o' hell.

What tho' they ca' me fornicator,
An' tease my name in kintry clatter:
The mair they tauk I'm kent the better,
E'en let them clash;

An auld wife's tongue's a feckless matter
To gie ane fash.

Sweet fruit o' mony a merry dint,
My funny toil is now a' tint,
Sin' thou came to the warl asklent,

Which fools may scoff at;

In my last plack thy part's be in't

The better ha'f o't.

An' if thou be what I wad hae thee, An' tak the counsel I sall gie thee, A lovin' father I'll be to thee,

If thou be spar'd;

Thro' a' thy childish years I'll e'e thee,

An' think't weel war'd.

Gude grant that thon may aye inherit
Thy mither's person, grace, an' merit,
An' thy poor worthless daddy's spirit,
Without his failins;
"Twill please me mair to hear an' see it
Than stocket mailens.

XXXIV.

NATURE'S LAW.

A POEM HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO G. H. ESQ. "Great nature spoke, observant man obey'd."

POPE.

[This Poem was written by Burns at Mossgiel, and "humbly inscribed to Gavin Hamilton, Esq.” It is supposed to allude to his intercourse with Jean Armour, with the circumstances of which he seems to have made many of his comrades acquainted. These verses were well known to many of the admirers of the poet, but they remained in manuscript till given to the world by Sir Harris Nicolas, in Pickering's Aldine Edition of the British Poets.]

LET other heroes boast their scars,

The marks of sturt and strife; And other poets sing of wars,

The plagues of human life;
Shame fa' the fun; wi' sword and gun
To slap mankind like lumber!

I sing his name, and nobler fame,
Wha multiplies our number.

Great Nature spoke, with air benign,
"Go on, ye human race!

This lower world I you resign,

Be fruitful and increase.

The liquid fire of strong desire

I've pour'd it in each bosom;

Here, in this hand, does mankind stand, And there, is beauty's blossom."

The hero of these artless strains,

A lowly bard was he,

Who sung his rhymes in Coila's plains
With meikle mirth an' glee;

Kind Nature's care had given his share,
Large, of the flaming current;
And all devout, he never sought
To stem the sacred torrent.

He felt the powerful, high behest, Thrill vital through and through; And sought a correspondent breast, To give obedience due:

Who in her rough imperfect line

Thus daurs to name thee; To stigmatize false friends of thine

Can ne'er defame thee.

[This beautiful poem was imagined while the poet was holding the plough, on the farm of Mossgiel : the field is still pointed out; and a man called Blane is still living, who says he was gaudsman to the bard at the time, and chased the mouse with the plough-pettle, for which he was rebuked by his young master, who inquired what harm the poor mouse had done him. In the night that followed, Burns awoke his gaudsman, who was in the same bed with him, recited the poem as it now stands, and said, "What think you of our mouse now?"]