the beauty and amiability of this young lady. So strongly had her charms and
various attractions impressed the poet, that he alluded to her in the "Address
to Edinburgh."

Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye,
Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine;

I see the Sire of Love on high,

And own His work indeed divine.

She died of consumption at the age of twenty-three.

LIFE ne'er exulted in so rich a prize
As Burnet, lovely from her native skies;
Nor envious Death so triumph'd in a blow,
As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low.

Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget?
In richest ore the brightest jewel set!

In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown,
As by His noblest work the Godhead best is known.

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, immix'd with reedy fens ;
Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stored;
Ye rugged cliffs, o'erhanging dreary glens,
To you I fly, ye with my soul accord.

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 deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree;

So from it ravish'd, leaves it bleak and bare.

LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON THE APPROACH
OF SPRING.

IN a letter to. Graham of Fintray, enclosing a copy of "The Lament," the poet
says:-
"Whether it is that the story of our Mary Queen of Scots has a peculiar
effect on the feelings of a poet, or whether I have, in the enclosed ballad,
succeeded beyond my usual poetic success, I know not, but it has pleased me
beyond any effort of my Muse for a good while past."

Now Nature hangs her mantle green

On every blooming tree,

And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea:

Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;

But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.

Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing;

The merle, in his noontide bower,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis wild, wi' mony a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest :
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.

Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae ;
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang!

I was the queen o' bonny France,
Where happy I hae been;
Fu' lightly rase I in the morn,
As blithe lay down at e'en :
And I'm the sovereign of Scotland,
And mony a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands,

And never-ending care.

But as for thee, thou false woman!—

My sister and my fae,

Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a sword

That through thy soul shall gae !

The weeping blood in woman's breast

Was never known to thee

Nor the balm that draps on wounds of woe Frae woman's pitying ee.

My son! my son ! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine!

And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er wad blink on mine!

God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee:

And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend,
Remember him for me!

Oh! soon to me may summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair to me the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn!
And in the narrow house o' death
Let winter round me rave;

And the next flowers that deck the spring
Bloom on my peaceful grave!

LAMENT FOR JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN.

In a letter enclosing the "Lament" to Lady Elizabeth Cunningham, sister of the earl, Burns says:-"My heart glows, and shall ever glow, with the most grateful sense and remembrance of his lordship's goodness. The sables I did myself the honour to wear to his lordship's memory were not the 'mockery of woe.' Nor shall my gratitude perish with me! If, among my children, I shall have a son that has a heart, he shall hand it down to his child as a family honour, and a family debt, that my dearest existence I owe to the noble house of Glencairn."

THE wind blew hollow frae the hills,

By fits the sun's departing beam

Look'd on the fading yellow woods

That waved o'er Lugar's winding stream :

Beneath a craigy steep, a bard,

Laden with years and meikle pain,

In loud lament bewail'd his lord,

Whom death had all untimely ta'en.

He lean'd him to an ancient aik,

Whose trunk was mouldering down with years;

His locks were bleachèd white with time,

His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears;

And as he touch'd his trembling harp,
And as he tuned his doleful sang,
The winds, lamenting through their caves,
To Echo bore the notes alang:

"Ye scatter'd birds that faintly sing,
The reliques of the vernal quire
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds
The honours of the agèd year!
A few short months, and glad and gay,
Again ye'll charm the ear and ee;

But nocht in all revolving time

Can gladness bring again to me.

"I am a bending agèd tree,

That long has stood the wind and rain;

But now has come a cruel blast,

And my last hold of earth is gane:

Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring,
Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom;
But I maun lie before the storm,

And ithers plant them in my room.

"I've seen sae mony changefu' years, On earth I am a stranger grown; I wander in the ways of men,

Alike unknowing and unknown:
Unheard, unpitied, unrelieved,

I bear alane my lade o' care,
For silent, low, on beds of dust,
Lie a' that would my sorrows share.

"And last (the sum of a' my griefs!)
My noble master lies in clay;
The flower amang our barons bold,
His country's pride-his country's stay!
weary being now I pine,

In

For a' the life of life is dead,

And hope has left my agèd ken,
On forward wing for ever fled.

"Awake thy last sad voice, my harp!
The voice of woe and wild despair;
Awake! resound thy latest lay-

Then sleep in silence evermair! And thou, my last, best, only friend, That fillest an untimely tomb,

Accept this tribute from the bard

Thou brought from Fortune's mirkest gloom.

"In Poverty's low barren vale

Thick mists, obscure, involved me round; Though oft I turn'd the wistful eye,

Nae ray of fame was to be found; Thou found'st me, like the morning sun, That melts the fogs in limpid airThe friendless bard and rustic song Became alike thy fostering care.

"Oh! why has worth so short a date,
While villains ripen gray with time?
Must thou, the noble, generous, great,
Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime !
Why did I live to see that day?

A day to me so full of woe!
Oh! had I met the mortal shaft
Which laid my benefactor low!

"The bridegroom may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen:

The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been ;
The mother may forget the child

That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,

And a' that thou hast done for me!"

LINES

SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD, BART., OF WHITEFOORD, WITH THE
FOREGOING POEM.

THOU, who thy honour as thy God reverest,
Who, save thy mind's reproach, nought earthly fear'st,
To thee this votive offering I impart,

The tearful tribute of a broken heart.

The friend thou valued'st, I the patron loved;

His worth, his honour, all the world approved.

We'll mourn till we too go as he has gone,

And tread the dreary path to that dark world unknown.

ADDRESS TO THE SHADE OF THOMSON,

ON CROWNING HIS BUST AT EDNAM, ROXBURGHSHIRE, WITH BAYS.

WHILE virgin Spring, by Eden's flood,
Unfolds her tender mantle green,

Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,
Or tunes Eolian strains between :

While Summer, with a matron grace,
Retreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade,

Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade:

While Autumn, benefactor kind,

By Tweed erects his agèd head,
And sees, with self-approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed:

While maniac Winter rages o'er

The hills whence classic Yarrow flows,

Rousing the turbid torrent's roar,

Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows:

So long, sweet Poet of the year !

Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won;

While Scotia, with exulting tear,

Proclaims that Thomson was her son!