But just for peasant's feet a floor,
Small kingdom for a child of God!
Yet here was Scotland's noblest born,
And here Apollo chose to light;
And here those large eyes hailed the morn
That had for beauty such a sight!
There, as the glorious infant lay,
Some angel fanned him with his wing,
And whispered, "Dawn upon the day
Like a new sun! go forth and sing!"
He rose and sang, and Scotland heard,
The round world echoed with his song,
And hearts in every land were stirred
With love, and joy, and scorn of wrong.
Some their cold lips disdainful curled;
Yet the sweet lays would many learn;
But he went singing through the world,
In most melodious unconcern.
For flowers will grow, and showers will fall,
And clouds will travel o'er the sky;
And the great God, who cares for all,
He will not let his darlings die.
But they shall sing in spite of men,
In spite of poverty and shame,
And show the world the poet's pen
May match the sword in winning fame.
Thomas William Parsons.
TO A ROSE BROUGHT FROM NEAR ALLOWAY KIRK, IN AYRSHIRE, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1822.
rose of Alloway! my thanks;
Thou mindst me of that autumn noon
When first we met upon the banks
And braes o' bonny Doon."
Like thine, beneath the thorn-tree's bough,
My sunny hour was glad and brief;
We've crossed the winter sea, and thou
Art withered-flower and leaf.
I've stood beside the cottage-bed
Where the bard-peasant first drew breath;
A straw-thatched roof above his head,
A straw-wrought couch beneath.
And I have stood beside the pile,
His monument, that tells to heaven
The homage of earth's proudest isle,
To that bard-peasant given.
The last, the hallowed home of one
Who lives upon all memories,
Though with the buried gone.
Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined,
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind.
Sages, with wisdom's garland wreathed,
Crowned kings, and mitred priests of power,
And warriors with their bright swords sheathed,
The mightiest of the hour;;
And lowlier names, whose humble home
Is lit by fortune's dimmer star,
Are there, - o'er wave and mountain come,
From countries near and far;
Pilgrims, whose wandering feet have pressed
The Switzer's snow, the Arab's sand,
Or trod the piled leaves of the west,
My own green forest-land;
All ask the cottage of his birth,
Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung,
And gather feelings not of earth
His fields and streams among.
They linger by the Doon's low trees,
And pastoral Nith, and wooded Ayr,
And round thy sepulchres, Dumfries !
The poet's tomb is there.
But what to them the sculptor's art,
His funeral columns, wreaths, and urns? Wear they not graven on the heart
The name of Robert Burns?
WHEN chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We thinkna on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tam O'Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonnie lasses).
O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise, As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice! She tauld thee weel thou wast a skellum, A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum; That frae November till October, Ae market-day thou was nae sober; That ilka melder, wi' the miller, Thou sat as lang as thou had siller; That every naig was ca'd a shoe on, The smith and thee gat roaring fou on; That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday, Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday.
She prophesied that, late or soon,
Thou would be found deep drowned in Doon;
Or catched wi' warlocks i' the mirk,
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthened, sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises !
But to our tale: Ae market-night,
Tam had got planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter;
And ay the ale was growing better:
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi' favors, secret, sweet, and precious:
The souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam didna mind the storm a whistle.
Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drowned himself amang the nappy!
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,
The minutes winged their way wi' pleasure:
Kings may be blessed, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious!
But pleasures are like poppies spread,
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