Ye winged hours that o'er us past, Enraptur'd more, the more enjoy'd, My fondly-treasur'd thoughts employ'd. The morn, that warns th' approaching day, I see the hours in long array, That I must suffer, lingering, slow Full many a pang, and many a throe, Keen recollection's direful train, Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low, Shall kiss the distant, western main. And when my nightly couch I try, Reigns haggard-wild, in sore affright: From such a horror-breathing night. O thou bright queen, who o'er th' expanse Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway! Oft has thy silent-marking glance Observ'd us, fondly-wand'ring, stray! The time, unheeded, sped away, While love's luxurious pulse beat high, Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray, To mark the mutual kindling eye. Oh! scenes in strong remembrance set! Scenes never, never to return! Scenes, if in stupor I forget, Again I feel, again I burn! From ev'ry joy and pleasure torn, DESPONDENCY. AN ODE. ["I think," said Burns, "it is one of the greatest pleasures attending a poetic genius, that we can give our woes, cares, jovs, and loves an embodied form in verse, which to me is ever immediate ease." He elsewhere says, "My passions raged like so many devils till they got vent in rhyme." That eminent painter, Fuseli, on seeing his wife in a passion, said composedly, "Swear, my love, swear heartily: you know not how much it will ease you!" This poem was printed in the Kilmarnock edition, and gives a true picture of those bitter moments experienced by the bard, when love and fortune alike deceived him.] OPPRESS'D with grief, oppress'd with care, A burden more than I can bear, I set me down and sigh: What sick'ning scenes appear Too justly I may fear! Still caring, despairing, Must be my bitter doom; Happy, ye sons of busy life, No other view regard! Ev'n when the wished end's deny'd, Meet ev'ry sad returning night You, bustling, and justling, I, listless, yet restless, Find every prospect vain. How blest the solitary's lot, Who, all-forgetting, all forgot, The cavern wild with tangling roots, Or, haply, to his ev'ning thought, The ways of men are distant brought, A faint collected dream; While praising, and raising His thoughts to heav'n on high, He views the solemn sky. Than I, no lonely hermit plac'd The lucky moment to improve, And just to stop, and just to move, But ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys, Which I too keenly taste, The solitary can despise, Can want, and yet be blest! He needs not, he heeds not, Or human love or hate, At perfidy ingrate! Oh! enviable, early days, When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze, To care, to guilt unknown! How ill exchang'd for riper times, To feel the follies, or the crimes, Of others, or my own! Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport, Ye little know the ills ye court, That active man engage: THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ. "Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure: Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor."-GRAY. (The house of William Burns was the scene of this fine, devout, and tranquil drama, and William himself was the saint, the father, and the husband, who gives life and sentiment to the whole. Robert had frequently remarked to me," says Gilbert Burns, "that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, Let us wor ship God used by a decent sober head of a family, introducing family worship." To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for the "Cotter's Saturday Night." He owed some little, however, of the inspiration to Fergusson's "Farmer's Ingle," a poem of great merit. The calm tone and holy composure of the Cotter's Saturday Night have been mistaken by Hogg for want of nerve and life. "It is a dull, heavy, lifeless poem," he says, "and the only beauty it possesses. in my estimation, is, that it is a sort of family picture of the poet's family. The worst thing of all, it is not original, but is a decided imitation of Fergusson's beautiful pastoral, The Farmer's Ingle:' I have a perfect contempt for all plagiarisms and imitations." Motherwell tries to qualify the censure of his brother editor, by quoting Lockhart's opinion-at once lofty and just, of this fine picture Of domestic happiness and devotion.] My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend! With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end: My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise: To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene; Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween! The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh: This night his weekly moil is at an end, At length his lonely cot appears in view, Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher thro' His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie Wife's smile, Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparklin' in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps, to show a bra' new gown, Or deposite her sair-won penny fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. With joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; The Father mixes a' wi' admonition due. Their master's an' their mistress's commands, An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play: |