Kate soon will be a woefu' woman! deuce endeavor The carline claught her by the rump, snatched at And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, 1 It is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any further than the middle of the next running-stream. It may be proper likewise to mention to the benighted traveller, that when he falls in with bogles, whatever danger may be in his going forward, there is much more hazard in turning back. - B. STANZAS ON THE BIRTH OF A POSTHU MOUS CHILD, BORN UNDEF PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF FAMILY DISTRESS. Mrs. Dunlop had undergone a severe domestic af fliction. Her daughter Susan had married a French gentleman named Henri, of good birth and fortune, and the young couple lived happily at Loudoun Castle, in Ayrshire, when (June 22, 1790) the gentleman sank under the effects of a severe cold, leaving his wife pregnant. SWEET floweret, pledge o' meikle love, What heart o' stane wad thou na more, November hirples o'er the lea Chill on thy lovely form; And gane, alas! the sheltering tree May He who gives the rain to pour, May He, the friend of wo and want, But late she flourished, rooted fast, Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem, And from thee many a parent stem pangs November, 1790. ELEGY ON THE LATE MISS BURNET OF MONBODDO. "I have these several months been hammering at an elegy on the amiable and accomplished Miss Burnet. I have got, and can get no further than the following fragment." Burns to Mr. Cunningham, 23d January, 1791. This beautiful creature, to whom Burns paid so high a compliment in his Address to Edinburgh, had been carried off by consumption, 17th June, 1790. LIFE ne'er exulted in so rich a prize As Burnet, lovely from her native skies; Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget? In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves; Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore, Ye woodland choir that chant your idle loves, Ye cease to charm-Eliza is no more! Ye heathy wastes, immixed with reedy fens, Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stored, Ye rugged cliffs, o'erhanging dreary glens, To you Princes, whose cumbrous pride was all their worth, Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail, And thou, sweet excellence! forsake our earth, And not a Muse in honest grief bewail? We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride, And virtue's light, that beams beyond the spheres ; But, like the sun eclipsed at morning-tide, Thou left'st us darkling in a world of tears. The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee, That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care! So decked the woodbine sweet yon aged tree; So from it ravished, leaves it bleak and bare. LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING. "The ballad on Queen Mary was begun while I was busy with Percy's Reliques of English Poetry."Burns, February, 1791. Now Nature hangs her mantle green On every blooming tree, And spreads her sheets o' daisies white Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams. VOL. II. 18 |