The Autumn mourns her ripening corn,
By early Winter's ravage torn ;
Across her placid, azure sky,
She sees the scowling tempest fly;
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave
I think upon the stormy wave,
Where many a danger I must dare,
Far from the bonny banks of Ayr.
'Tis not the surging billow's roar,
'Tis not that fatal deadly shore;
Though death in every shape appear,
The wretched have no more to fear!
But round my heart the ties are bound,
That heart transpierced with many a wound;
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear,
To leave the bonny banks of Ayr.
Farewell old Coila's hills and dales,
Her heathy moors and winding vales;
The scenes where wretched fancy roves,
Pursuing past, unhappy loves!.
Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes!
My peace with these, my love with those:
The bursting tears my heart declare;
Farewell the bonny banks of Ayr!
INSCRIBED TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ., AYR.
HE simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough, Learning his tuneful trade from every bough; The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,
Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn
The soaring lark, the perching redbreast shrill,
Or deep-toned plovers, gray, wild-whistling o'er
the hill;
Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed,
To hardy independence bravely bred,
By early poverty to hardship steeled,
And trained to arms in stern misfortune's field
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
Or labour hard the panegyric close,
With all the venal soul of dedicating prose?
No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings,
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard,
Fame, honest Fame, his great, his dear reward!
Still, if some patron's generous care he trace,
Skilled in the secret to bestow with grace,
When Ballantyne befriends his humble name,
And hands the rustic stranger up to Fame,
With heartfelt throes his grateful bosom swells,
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.
'Twas when the stacks get on their winter hap, And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap; Potato bings are snuggèd up frae skaith Of coming Winter's biting, frosty breath; The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils, Unnumbered buds' and flowers' delicious spoils Sealed up with frugal care in massive waxen piles, Are doomed by man, that tyrant o'er the weak, The death o' devils smoored wi' brimstone reek:
The thundering guns are heard on every side,
The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide;
The feathered field-mates, bound by Nature's tie,
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie;
(What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds,
And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds :)
Nae mair the flower in field or meadow springs ;
Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings,
Except, perhaps, the robin's whistling glee,
Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree;
The hoary morns precede the sunny days,
Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noontide blaze,
While thick the gossamour waves wanton in the
'T was in that season, when a simple Bard,
Unknown and poor, Simplicity's reward,
Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr,
By whim inspired, or haply prest wi' care,
He left his bed, and took his wayward route,
And down by Simpson's wheeled the left-about:
(Whether impelled by all-directing Fate,
To witness what I after shall narrate; 1
Or whether, rapt in meditation high,
He wandered out he knew not where or why.)
The drowsy Dungeon-clock had numbered two, And Wallace Tower had sworn the fact was true; The tide-swoln Firth, with sullen sounding roar,
1 In a MS. copy, here occur two lines omitted in print: "Or penitential pangs for former sins
Led him to rove by quondam Merran Din's."
Through the still night dashed hoarse along the
All else was hushed as Nature's closed e'e;
The silent moon shone high o'er tower and tree;
The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam,
Crept, gently-crusting, o'er the glittering stream ;-
When lo! on either hand the listening Bard,
The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard ;
Two dusky forms dart through the midnight air,
Swift as the gos drives on the wheeling hare.
Ane on the Auld Brig his airy shape uprears,
The ither flutters o'er the rising piers:
Our warlock Rhymer instantly descried
The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside.
(That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke,
And ken the lingo of the sp'ritual folk ;
Fays, Spunkies, Kelpies, a', they can explain them,
And even the very deils they brawly ken them.)
Auld Brig appeared of ancient Pictish race,
The very wrinkles Gothic in his face :
He seemed as he wi' Time had warstl'd lang,
Yet, teughly doure, he bade an unco bang.
New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat
That he at Lon'on, frae ane Adams, got;
In's hand five taper staves as smooth's a bead,
Wi' virls and whirlygigums at the head.
The Goth was stalking round with anxious search,
Spying the time-worn flaws in every arch;
It chanced his new-come neebor took his e'e,
And e'en a vexed and angry heart had he!
Wi' thieveless sneer to see his modish mien,.
He, down the water, gies him this guid-e'en :
I doubt na, frien', ye 'll think ye're nae sheepshank,
Ance ye were streekit o'er frae bank to bank,
But gin ye be a brig as auld as me
Though, faith, that day I doubt ye 'll never see There'll be, if that date come, I'll wad a boddle, Some fewer whigmaleeries in your noddle.
Auld Vandal, ye but shew your
Just much about it wi' your scanty sense.
Will your poor, narrow footpath of a street
Whare twa wheel-barrows tremble when they
Your ruined, formless bulk o' stane and lime,
Compare wi' bonny brigs o' modern time?
There's men o' taste would tak the Ducat Stream,
Though they should cast the very sark and swim,
Ere they would grate their feelings wi' the view
Of sic an ugly Gothic hulk as you.
Conceited gowk, puffed up wi' windy pride! This monie a year I've stood the flood and tide; And though wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn, I'll be a Brig when ye 're a shapeless cairn! As yet ye little ken about the matter, But twa-three winters will inform ye better. When heavy, dark, continued, a'-day rains,
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