A poor friendless wanderer may well claim a sigh, Still more if that wanderer were royal.

My fathers that name have revered on a throne;
My fathers have fallen to right it;

Those fathers would spurn their degenerate son,
That name should he scoffingly slight it.

Still in prayers for King George I most heartily join,
The Queen, and the rest of the gentry,

Be they wise, be they foolish, is nothing of mine; Their title 's avow'd by my country.

But why of this epocha make such a fuss,

But loyalty, truce! we're on dangerous ground,
Who knows how the fashions may alter?
The doctrine to-day that is loyalty sound,
To-morrow may bring us a halter.

I send you a trifle, a head of a Bard,
A trifle scarce worthy your care;

But accept it, good Sir, as a mark of respect;
Sincere as a saint's dying prayer.

Now life's chilly evening dim shades on your eye,
And ushers the long dreary night;

But you, like the star that athwart gilds the sky, Your course to the latest is bright.

TO WILLIAM SIMPSON, OCHILTREE.

MAY, 1785.

I GAT your letter, winsome Willie ;
Wi' gratefu' heart I thank you brawlie;
Tho' I maun say 't, I wad be silly,

And unco vain,

Should I believe, my coaxing billie,
Your flatterin' strain.

But I'se believe ye kindly meant it,
I sud1 be laith' to think ye hinted
Ironic satire, sidelins' sklented

On my poor Musie;

Tho' in sic phrasin" terms ye 've penn'd it,
I scarce excuse ye.

My senses wad be in a creel,5
Should I but dare a hope to speel,"
Wi' Allan or wi' Gilbertfield,

The braes o' fame;

Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel;

A deathless name!

(O Fergusson! thy glorious parts
Ill suited law's dry, musty arts!
My curse upon your whunstane' hearts,
Ye E'nburgh gentry!

The tithe o' what ye waste at cartes,
Wad stow'd his pantry!)

Yet when a tale comes i' my head,
Or lasses gie my heart a screed,10
As whyles they 're like to be my dead,"
(O sad disease!)

I kittle up my rustic reed;

It gies me ease.

Auld Coila1 now may fidge fu' fain,"

She's gotten Poets o' her ain,

Chiels wha their chanters" winna hain,15
But tune their lays,

Till echoes a' resound again

Her weel-sung praise.

Nae Poet thought her worth his while,
To set her name in measured style;
She lay like some unkenn'd-of-isle,

Beside New Holland,

Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil

Besouth Magellan.

1 Should.-2 Loth.- Sidelong.-4 Flattering.-5 A fish-basket.—6 To climb. —A hard rocky stone.-8 Edinburgh.—9 Cards.—1o A rent.-11 To be my death.-12 From Kyle, a district of Ayrshire.-13 Manifest strong symptoms of pleasure, or delight.-14 Part of a bagpipe.-15 Spare.

Ramsay and famous Fergusson
Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon;
Yarrow an' Tweed, to monie a tune,
Owre Scotland rings,

While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an' Doon,
Nae body sings.

Th' Ilissus, Tiber, Thames, an' Seine,
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu' line!
But, Willie, set your fit' to mine,

An' cock your crest,

We'll gar' our streams and burnies shine
Up wi' the best.

We'll sing auld Coila's plains and fells,*
Her moors red brown wi' heather bells,
Her banks an' braes, her dens an' dells,

Where glorious Wallace
Aft bure the gree," as story tells,

Frae Southron billies."

At Wallace' name what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood!
Oft have our fearless fathers strode
By Wallace' side,

Still pressing onward, red-wat shod,"
Or glorious died.

Oh, sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods,
When lintwhites' chant amang the buds,
And jinking hares, in amorous whids,10
Their loves enjoy,

While thro' the braes the cushat croods11
Wi' wailfu' cry!

Even winter bleak has charms to me,
When winds rave thro' the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree

1 Foot.—2 Make.—3 Rivers and brooks.—4 Fields.—5 Obtained the victory. -6 Englishmen.-7 To walk in blood over the shoe-tops.-8 Valleys.-9 Linnets.-10 The motion of a hare in running, when not frightened.-11 The dove coos.

O Nature! a' thy shows an' forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms;
Whether the summer kindly warms
Wi' life an' light,

Or winter howls, in gusty storms,
The lang, dark night!

The Muse, nae Poet ever fand1 her,
Till by himsel' he learn'd to wander,
Adown some trotting burn's meander,
And no think lang;2

Oh, sweet to stray and pensive ponder
A heart-felt sang!

3

4

The warly race may drudge an' drive,
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch an' strive,
Let me fair Nature's face descrive,5

And I, wi' pleasure,

Shall let the busy, grumbling hive

Bum owre their treasure.

Fareweel, "my rhyme-composing brither!"
We've been owre lang unkenn'd' to ither;
Now let us lay our heads thegither,

In love fraternal:

May Envy wallop in a tether,

8

Black fiend infernal!

While Highlandmen hate tolls an' taxes;
While moorlan' herds like guid fat braxies;o
While terra firma on her axis

Diurnal turns,

Count on a friend, in faith an' practice,
In ROBERT BURNS.

POSTSCRIPT.

My memory 's no worth a preen;10

I had amaist forgotten clean,

You bade me write you what they mean

By this new-light,"

1 Found.-2 And not think the time long, or be weary.-3 Justle with the shoulder.- Justle.-5 Describe.—6 To hum.-7 Unknown to each other.

* Struggle as an animal whose tether gets entangled.—9 Morbid sheep.—10 A pin.

11 New-light, a cant phrase in the west of Scotland for those religious opinions which Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, defended so strenuously.

'Bout which our herds sae aft hae been
Maist like to fight.

In days when mankind were but callans1
At grammar, logic, and sic talents,

They took nae pains their speech to balance,
Or rules to gie,

But spak their thoughts in plain, braid Lallans,"
Like you or me.

In thae3 auld times they thought the moon
Just like a sark,* or pair o' shoon,
Wore by degrees, till her last roon,"

Gaed past their viewin',

An' shortly after she was done,

They gat a new one.

This past for certain, undisputed,
It ne'er came i' their heads to doubt it,
Till chiels gat up an' wad confute it,
An' ca'd it wrang;

An' muckle din there was about it,
Bath loud an' lang.

Some herds, weel learn'd upo' the beuk,"
Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk;
For 'twas the auld moon turn'd a neuk,*
An' out o' sight,

An' backlins-comin' to the leuk,

She grew mair bright.

8

This was denied-it was affirm'd:
The herds and hissels10 were alarm'd;
The reverend gray-beards raved an' storm'd,
That beardless laddies

Should think they better were inform'd

Than their auld daddies.

Frae less to mair it gaed to sticks;

Frae words an' aiths to clours" an' nicks;

1 Boys.—2 The Scottish dialect.-3 These.-4 A shirt.—5 A shred.—6 Book. -7 Maintain by dint of assertion.—8 Corner.—9 Returning.—10 So many cattle as one person can attend.-11 A wound occasioned by a blow.