The deed that I dared, could it merit their malice,

A king and a father to place on his throne? His right are these hills, and his right are these valleys,

Where the wild beasts find shelter, but I can

find none.

But 'tis not my sufferings thus wretched, forlorn ; My brave gallant friends! 'tis your ruin I mourn; Your deeds proved so loyal in hot bloody

trial

Alas! I can make you no sweeter return!

EPISTLE TO HUGH PARKER.

Written from the farm of Ellisland, upon which Burns entered in June, 1788.

In this strange land, this uncouth clime,

A land unknown to prose or rhyme;
Where words ne'er crost the Muse's heckles,1

Nor limpet in poetic shackles ;

A land that Prose did never view it,

Except when drunk he stacher't through it; staggered Here, ambush'd by the chimla cheek,

1 Hackles an instrument for dressing flax.

chimney

Hid in an atmosphere of reek,

I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk,

I hear it for in vain I leuk.

-

The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel,
Enhusked by a fog infernal:
Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,
I sit and count my sins by chapters.
For life and spunk like ither Christians,
I'm dwindled down to mere existence;
Wi' nae converse but Gallowa' bodies,1
Wi' nae kenn'd face but Jenny Geddes.'
Jenny, my Pegasean pride!

Dowie she saunters down Nithside,

And aye a westlin leuk she throws,

smoke

Sad

While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose! cover Was it for this, wi' canny care,

gentle

Thou bure the Bard through many a shire?
At howes or hillocks never stumbled,

And late or early never grumbled?
Oh, had I power likè inclination,
I'd heeze thee up a constellation,
To canter with the Sagitarre,
Or loup the ecliptic like a bar;
Or turn the pole like any arrow;
Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow,
Down the zodiac urge the race,

And cast dirt on his godship's face:

hollows

raise

1 Ellisland is near the borders of the stewartry of Kirkcud bright, a portion of the district popularly called Galloway.

2 His mare

For I could lay my bread and kail
He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail.

Wi' a' this care and a' this grief,
And sma', sma' prospect of relief,
And nought but peat-reek i' my head,
How can I write what ye can read?
Torbolton, twenty-fourth o' June,
Ye'll find me in a better tune;

But till we meet and weet our whistle,
Tak this excuse for nae epistle.

broth

ROBERT BUrns.

I LOVE MY JEAN.

TUNE- Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey.

In the spring of 1788 Burns resolved to acknowl. edge Jean Armour as his wife. Until a proper house should be built at Ellisland she was to remain at Mauchline, with her only surviving child, Burns living in a mere hovel alone on his farm.

Or a' the airts the wind can blaw, quarter
I dearly like the west,

For there the bonny lassie lives,

The lassie I lo'e best:

There's wild woods grow, and rivers row, roll

And monie a hill between; 1

But day and night my fancy's flight

Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair;
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,

I hear her charm the air:

1 The commencement of this stanza is given in Johnson's Museum

"There wild woods grow," etc.,

as implying the nature of the scenery in the west. In Wood's Songs of Scotland, the reading is

"Though wild woods grow, and rivers row,

Wi' monie a hill between,

Baith day and night," etc.,

evidently an alteration designed to improve the logic of the verse. It appears that both readings are wrong, for in the original manuscript of Burns's contributions to Johnson, in the possession of Archibald Hastie, Esq., the line is written: "There wild woods grow," etc., as in our text. Another example will serve to bring this peculiarity of composition more distinctly before the mind of the reader:

By Auchtertyre grows the aik,

On Yarrow banks the birken shaw;
But Phemie was a bonnier lass

Than braes o' Yarrow ever saw.

I have been reminded that the idea is not new in verse:

“ ἐπειὴ μάλα πολλὰ μεταξὺ

Ουρεά τε σκιόεντα, θάλασσά τε ήχήεσσα.”

Iliud, i. 156

There's not a bonny flower that springs
By fountain, shaw, or green,
There's not a bonny bird that sings,

But minds me o' my Jean.1

1 The first of these stanzas appeared in the third volume of Johnson's Museum. Burns's note upon it afterwards was: "This song I composed out of compliment to Mrs. Burns. N. B. It was in the honeymoon." Two additional stanzas were some years afterwards produced by John Hamilton, music-seller in Edinburgh:

O blaw, ye westlin' winds, blaw saft,
Amang the leafy trees,

Wi' balmy gale, frae hill and dale
Bring hame the laden bees;
And bring the lassie back to me

That's aye sae neat and clean;

Ae smile o' her wad banish care,
Sae charming is my Jean.

What sighs and vows amang the knowes

Hae passed atween us twa!

How fond to meet, how wae to part,

That night she gaed awa'!

The powers aboon can only ken,

To whom the heart is seen,
That nane can be sae dear to me

As my sweet lovely Jean.

sad