More pointed still we make ourselves And man, whose heaven-erected face The smiles of love adorn, Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn! "See yonder poor, o'erlaboured wight, So abject, mean, and vile, Who begs a brother of the earth "If I'm designed yon lordling's slaveBy Nature's law designedWhy was an independent wish E'er planted in my mind? If not, why am I subject to Or why has man the will and power To make his fellow mourn? "Yet let not this too much, my son, Disturb thy youthful breast; This partial view of human-kind Is surely not the last! The poor, oppressed, honest man, Had never, sure, been born, Had there not been some recompense "Oh, Death! the poor man's dearest friend- Are laid with thee at rest! 1 The metrical structure, and some other features of this poem, may be traced to an old stall-ballad, entitled the Life and Age of Man, which Mr. Cromek recovered, and which opens thus: "Upon the sixteen hunder year Of God and fifty-three, Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear, As writings testifie; On January the sixteenth day, As I did ly alone, With many a sigh and sob did say, Ah! man is made to moan." THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ.1 "Let not ambition mock their useful toil, The short and simple annals of the poor."-GRAY. Robert had begun, some time before his father's death, to take a part in the family devotions, reading "the chapter" and giving out the psalm. After the death of William Burness, it fell to the poet by right of ancient custom, he being the eldest born, to take on himself the whole function of the family-priest, and he conducted the cottage-worship every night when at home during the whole time of his residence at Mossgiel. More than this, his sister and another surviving member of the household speak in the warmest terms of the style of his prayers. The latter individual 2 states, that he has never since listened to anything equal to these addresses. These facts, it will be admitted, form an interesting prelude to the beautiful poem in which Burns has placed in everlasting remembrance this phase of the rustic life of Scotland. Gilbert Burns gives us an account of what immedi 1 Probably the first verse and inscription to Mr. Aiken were added afterwards. 2 Mr. William Ronald, now a farmer in the neighborhood of Beith, in Ayrshire (1854). ately prompted his brother to compose this immortal work. "He had frequently," says Gilbert, "remarked to me that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase 'Let us worship 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." It needs only further to be remarked, that the poet found a model in one of the best poems of his predecessor Fergusson, entitled The Farmer's Ingle. My loved, my honoured, much-respected friend! No mercenary bard his homage pays; 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 sequestered scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aiken in a cottage would have been: Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween! November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; noise The short'ning winter-day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh, The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose: The toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, his course does And weary, o'er the moor, hameward bend.1 At length his lonely cot appears in view, His clean hearthstane, his thriftie wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, anxiety And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil. verse of The Farmer's Ingle bears a consid 1 The opening irable resemblance to this: Whan gloamin' gray out-owre the welkin keeks, Whan Bawtie ca's the owsen to the byre, Whan Thrasher John, sair dung, his barn-door steeks, Whan lusty lasses at the dighting tire — jaded shute winnowing What bangs fu' leal the e'ening's coming cauld, beats-truly Nor fleyed wi' a' the puirtith o' the plain -- makes frightened |