Early Critical Reviews on Robert Burns

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W. Hodge, 1900 - 313 pages
 

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Page 53 - But hark ! a rap comes gently to the door ; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neebor lad cam' o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek ; With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak : Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake. Wi...
Page 247 - THESE, as they change, ALMIGHTY FATHER, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of THEE. Forth in the pleasing Spring THY beauty walks, THY tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; And every sense, and every heart is joy. Then comes THY glory in the Summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then THY sun...
Page 54 - What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave: Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave. O happy love! where love like this is found! O heartfelt raptures! bliss beyond compare! I've paced much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare: — If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the...
Page 76 - The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride: His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; .Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care ; And ' Let us worship God !* he says, with solemn air.
Page 77 - Thou's met me in an evil hour; For I maun crush amang the stoure Thy slender stem : To spare thee now is past my pow'r, Thou bonnie gem. Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet, The bonnie Lark, companion meet ! Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet ! Wi' spreckl'd breast, When upward-springing, blythe, to greet The purpling east.
Page 77 - Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin ! Its silly wa's the win's are strewin ' ! An' naething, now, to big a new ane, O...
Page 58 - Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' blude red rusted; Five scymitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter, which a babe had strangled; A knife, a father's throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o...
Page 71 - Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life; and passing from one thought to another, Surely, said I, man is but a shadow and life a dream.
Page 58 - Nick, in shape o' beast; A tousie tyke, black, grim, and large, To gie them music was his charge: He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl, Till roof and rafters a
Page 78 - mang the dewy weet ! Wi' spreckl'd breast, "When upward-springing, blythe, to greet, The purpling east. Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Upon thy early, humble birth ; Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth Amid the storm, Scarce rear'd above the parent earth Thy tender form. The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield ; But thou, beneath the random bield O' clod or stane, Adorns the histie stibble-field Unseen, alane.

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