And here, by sweet endearing stealth, Shall meet the loving pair,

Despising worlds with all their wealth
As empty idle care:

The flow'rs shall vie in all their charms
The hour of heav'n to grace,
And birks extend their fragrant arms
To screen the dear embrace.

Here haply too at vernal dawn,
Some musing bard may stray,
And eye the smoking, dewy lawn,
And misty mountain, grey ;
Or by the reaper's nightly beam,

Mild chequering through the trees,
Rave to my darkly dashing stream,
Hoarse-swelling on the breeze.

Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,
My lowly banks o'erspread,
And view, deep bending in the pool,
Their shadows' wat'ry bed!

Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest,
My craggy cliffs adorn ;

And for the little songster's nest,
The close embow'ring thorn."

So may old Scotia's darling hope,
Your little angel band,

Spring, like their fathers, up to prop
Their honour'd native land!
So may thro' Albion's farthest ken,
To social-flowing glasses,

The grace be-"Athole's honest men,
And Athole's bonnie lassies!"

DESPONDENCY.

AN ODE.

OPPRESS'D with grief, oppress'd with care,
A burden more than I can bear,
I sit me down and sigh:
O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
Dim backward as I cast my view,
What sick'ning scenes appear!
What sorrows yet may pierce me thro',

Too justly I may fear!

Still caring, despairing,

Must be my bitter doom;

My woes here shall close ne'er,
But with the closing tomb!

Happy, ye sons of busy life,

Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard!

Ev'n when the wished end's deny'd,
Yet while the busy means are ply'd,
They bring their own reward:
Whilst I, a hope-abandon'd wight,
Unfitted with an aim,

Meet ev'ry sad returning night,
And joyless morn the same;
You, bustling, and justling,
Forget each grief and pain;
I, listless, yet restless,
Find every prospect vain.

How blest the Solitary's lot,
Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot,
Within his humble cell,

The cavern wild with tangling roots,
Sits o'er his newly-gather'd fruits,
Beside his crystal well!

Or, haply, to his ev'ning thought,
By unfrequented stream,

The ways of men are distant brought,
A faint collected dream :

While praising, and raising

His thoughts to heav'n on high,

As wand'ring, meand'ring,

He views the solemn sky.

Than I, no lonely hermit plac'd
Where never human footstep trac'd,
Less fit to play the part;
The lucky moment to improve,

And just to stop, and just to move,
With self-respecting art :

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,
Whilst I here must cry here,
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,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish!
The losses, the crosses,

That active man engage!
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim declining age!

WINTER,

A DIRGE.

THE wintry west extends his blast,

And hail and rain does blaw;
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:

While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,

And roars frae bank to brae;

And bird and beast in covert rest,

"The sweeping blast, the sky o'er-cast,"*

The joyless winter day,

Let others fear, to me more dear

Than all the pride of May:

The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,

My griefs it seems to join,

The leafless trees my fancy please,

Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Pow'r Supreme, whose mighty scheme

These woes of mine fulfil,

Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,

Because they are Thy Will!

• Dr Young.

Then all I want (O, do thou grant

This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy thou dost deny,

Assist me to resign.

ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE LIMP BY ME, WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT AT.*

INHUMAN man! curse on thy barb'rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye :
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!

Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field,
The bitter little that of life remains:
No more the thick'ning brakes and verdant plains,
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.

This poem, like the most of Burns', is founded in fact. The "fellow" who shot the poor hare is alleged to be a James Thomson, whose father occupied an adjoining farm to that of Ellisland. Of this piece Dr Gregory, to whose critical taste it was submitted, says,—" The wounded hare is a pretty good subject; but the measure you have chosen for it is not a good one; it does not flow well; and the rhyme of the fourth line is almost lost by its distance from the first. Murder-aiming is a bad compound epithet, and not very intelligible; blood-stained has the same fault : bleeding bosom is infinitely better. You have accustomed yourself to such epithets, and have no notion how stiff and quaint they appear to others, and how incongruous with poetic fancy and tender sentiments." The observation of Burns on this passage is highly characteristic. "Dr Gregory is a good man, but he crucifies me: I believe in his iron justice; but, like the devils, I believe and tremble." From the tender feelings expressed in this little piece for the wounded hare, and the indignant terms in which Burns rates its ruthless assailant, it is evident that he was not like the keen sportsman, who, while defending the humanity of