WINTER, A DIRGE. [The poet, in 1787, notes this as being the eldest of his printed pieces. In April, 1784, he had inserted it in his common-place Book, prefaced with some eloquent observations, of which the following passage is an excerpt:-"I take a peculiar pleasure in the season of Winter, more than the rest of the year. This, I believe, may be partly owing to my misfortunes giving my mind a melancholy cast; but there is something even in the mighty tempest which raises the mind to a serious sublimity favourable to everything great and noble. There is scarcely any earthly object which gives me more-I do not know if I should call it pleasure, but something which exalts and enraptures me, than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood, or high plantation, in a cloudy winter day, and hear the storm howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is my very best season for devotion: my mind is wrapt in a kind of enthusiasm to Him, who, in the lofty language of the Hebrew bard, walks on the wings of the wind.' In one of those seasons, just after a train of misfortunes, I composed the following:"] THE Wintry West extends his blast, Or, the stormy North sends driving forth, While, tumbling brown, the Burn comes down, And bird and beast, in covert, rest, 'The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,' Let others fear, to me more dear, Than all the pride of May: The Tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, My griefs it seems to join; The leafless trees my fancy please, Their fate resembles mine! * Thou POW'R SUPREME, whose mighty Scheme, These woes of mine fulfil; Here, firm, I rest, they must be best, Because they are Thy Will! This one request of mine!) Assist me to resign! * Dr. Young.-(R. B. 1786.) A PRAYER, IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. [The poet entered these verses in his early Scrap-Book under this title:-"A Prayer when fainting fits and other alarming symptoms of a pleurisy or some other dangerous disorder, which indeed still threatens me, first put nature on the aların." We can have no difficulty in assigning the date of this piece, as well as those other beautiful "Stanzas on the same occasion," which he printed in his Edinburgh volume, to the period of his six months' sojourn at Irvine, in 1781; for, in reference thereto, he says in his autobiography, "Rhyme, except some religious pieces which are in print, I had given up." His melancholy letter to his father in December of that year, exactly accords with the sentiment of the verses: Sometimes indeed," so he writes, "when for an hour or two my spirits are a little lightened, I glimmer a little into futurity; but my only pleasureable employment is looking backwards and forwards in a moral and religious way: I am quite transported at the thought that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains and disquietudes of this weary life."] O THOU unknown, Almighty Cause, In whose dread Presence, ere an hour, If I have wander'd in those paths As Something, loudly, in my breast, Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me, Where human weakness has come short, Or frailty stept aside, Do Thou, ALL-GOOD, for such Thou art, Where with intention I have err'd, No other plea I have, But, Thou art good; and Goodness still * Uncandid or unthinking detractors of the poet (some of these style themselves Reverend)-confounding the distinction between a confession and an exculpatory plea-have referred to this verse as shewing that Burns pleaded the strength of his passions as an excuse for sin. Tried by this standard, King David would also be condemned for reminding his Maker that he was "conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity." The Hebrew Bard, like him of Scotland, "bemoaned himself" for "listening to the witching voice" of his own passions. TO A MOUNTAIN-DAISY, ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL 1786. [On the 20th of April, 1786, the poet transcribed these verses, under the title of "The Gowan," to his friend John Kennedy, with these words:-"I have here enclosed a small piece, the very latest of my productions: I am a good deal pleased with some of the sentiments myself, as they are just the native querulous feelings of a heart which melancholy has marked for her own.' Under what circumstances then, was this "bonie gem produced?-On 3rd April, he wrote thus to a friend:-" My proposals for publishing, I am just going to send to press." Next week, he wrote to Ballantyne, as follows:-" My proposals came to hand last night. Old Mr. Armour prevailed with Mr. Aitken to mutilate that unlucky paper yesterday, (the mutual acknowledgment of marriage betwixt him and Miss Armour.) Would you believe it? although I had not a hope, nor even a wish to make her mine after her conduct, yet when he told me the names were all out of the paper, my heart died within me, and he cut my veins with the news. Perdition seize her falsehood!" This was the "perfidy ingrate" which he refers to in his Ode of Despondency, and the "dart next poem-the Ode to Ruin, where he says, "One has cut my dearest tye, and quivers in my heart." Thus, then, we see that the "Mountain-Daisy was a sort of prelude to his pathetic Lament, and mournful Odes of this dreary period.] Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, Wi's spreckl'd breast,* When upward-springing, blythe, to greet Cauld blew the bitter-biting North Upon thy early, humble birth; Yet chearfully thou glinted forth Amid the storm, Scarce rear'd above the Parent-earth Thy tender form. * Altered, in 1787, to "Wi' spreckl'd breast." of his The flaunting flow'rs 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. There, in thy scanty mantle clad, But now the share uptears thy bed, Such is the fate of artless Maid, Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade! By Love's simplicity betray'd, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid Such is the fate of simple Bard, Of prudent Lore, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n, Who long with wants and woes has striv❜n, By human pride or cunning driv'n To Mis'ry's brink, Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but HEAV'N, Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine- -no distant date; Stern Ruin's plough-share drives, elate, Full on thy bloom, Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, Shall be thy doom! TO RUIN. [The head-note to the foregoing poem, and those to the Lament and Despondency, will serve to illustrate this also, where the same theme is pursued. Here the outraged feelings of the suffering bard subside into resignation. In the first stanza, he gives sullen welcome to the ministers of woe, and in the closing verse he woos the cold embrace of the "grim Power, by Life abhorred." Some of its words he afterwards wove into a touching couplet of one of his lyrics: "This bruis'd heart o' mine that now beats in my breast, I can feel by its throbbings, will soon be at rest."] ALL hail! inexorable lord! At whose destruction-breathing word, I see each aimed dart; Then low'ring, and pouring, And thou grim Pow'r, by Life abhorr'd, My weary heart its throbbings cease, No fear more, no tear more, |