THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ. Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, No mercenary bard his homage pays; 5 To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween! Anticipation forward points the view; Gars auld elaes look amaist as weel's the new; 55 But hark! a rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens10 the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neebor lad came o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame 60 Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; With heart-struck, anxious care, enquires his name, While Jenny hafflins11 is afraid to speak; Weel-pleas'd the mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake. pare! 100 105 75 I've paced much this weary, mortal round, 110 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 80 In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents 115 the ev'ning gale." Is there, in human form, that bears a heart, A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth! That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, 85 Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling, 90 smooth! Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exil'd? Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild? The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; 120 Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny; 125 Or how the royal bard12 did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme: How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, 1 well-saved cheese 2 strong 3 often twelve-month 5 since flax € blossom hall-Bible (The hall was the general as 130 Had not on earth whereon to lay His head; 165 Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, "An honest man's the noblest work of And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road, 170 Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 175 Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim 'rous beastie, 10 |