My senses wad be in a creel,
Should I but dare a hope to speel,
Wi' Allan, or wi' Gilbertfield,

The braes o' fame;

Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel,

A deathless name.

(O Fergusson! thy glorious parts
Ill suited law's dry, musty arts!
My curse upon your whunstane hearts,
Ye E'nburgh gentry!

The tithe o' what ye waste at cartes
Wad stow'd his pantry!)

Yet when a tale comes i' my head,
Or lasses gie my heart a screed,
As whyles they're like to be my dead,
(O, sad disease!)

I kittle up my rustic reed,—

It gies me ease.

Auld Coila now may fidge fu' fain,

She's gotten poets o' her ain,

Chiels wha their chanters winna hain, But tune their lays

Till echoes a' resound again

Her weel-sung praise.

Nae poet thought her worth his while
To set her name in measur'd style!
She lay like some unkenn'd-of isle
Beside New Holland,

Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil
Besouth Magellan.

Ramsay an' famous Fergusson
Gled Forth an' Tay a lift aboon;
Yarrow an' Tweed, to monie a tune,
Owre Scotland rings;

While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an' Doon,
Nae body sings.

Th' Illissus, Tiber, Thames, an' Seine, Glide sweet in monie a tunefu' line! But, Willie, set your fit to mine,

An' cock your crest;

We'll gar our streams and burnies shine Up wi' the best.

We'll sing auld Coila's plains an' fells, Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells, Her banks and braes, her dens an' dells, Where glorious Wallace Aft bure the gree, as story tells,

Frae Southron billies.

At Wallace's name, what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood?
Oft have our fearless fathers strode

By Wallace's side,

Still pressing onward, red-wat shod,
Or glorious died.

O sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods, When lintwhites chant amang the buds, And jinkin hares, in amorous whids, Their loves enjoy,

While thro' the braes the cushat croods Wi' wailfu' cry!

Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me,
When winds rave thro' the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree

Are hoary gray;

Or blinding drifts wild furious flee,
Dark'ning the day!

O Nature! a' thy shews an forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms!
Whether the summer kindly warms,
Wi' life an' light,

Or winter howls, in gusty storms,
The lang, dark night!

The Muse, nae poet ever fand her,
Till by himsel he learn'd to wander,
Adown some trotting burn's meander,
An' no think lang!

O, sweet to stray an' pensive ponder
A heart-felt sang!

The warly race may drudge an' drive,
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an' strive,
Let me fair Nature's face descrive,
And I, wi' pleasure,

Shall let the busy, grumbling hive
Bum owre their treasure.

Fareweel, "my rhyme-composing brither!" We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither; Now let us lay our heads thegither,

In love fraternal :

May Envy wallop in a tether,

Black fiend, infernal!

While Highlandmen hate tolls an' taxes,
While moorlan' herds like guid fat braxies,
While terra firma on her axis

Diurnal turns,

Count on a friend, in faith an' practice,
In ROBERT BURNS.

POSTSCRIPT.

My memory's no worth a preen;
I had amaist forgotten clean,

Ye bade me write you what they mean
By this New Light,*

'Bout which our herds sae aft hae beer.
Maist like to fight.

In days when mankind were but callans
At grammar, logic, and sic talents,

They took nae pains their speech to balance
Or rules to gie,

But spak their thoughts in plain, braid Lallians,
Like you or me.

In thae auld times, they thought the moon
Just like a sark, or pair o' shoon,
Wore by degrees, till her last roon,

Gaed past their viewin';

An' shortly after she was done,

They gat a new one.

New Light, a cant phrase, in the West of Scotland, for those relig'ous opinions which Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, defended so strenuously.

This past for certain, undisputed;

It ne'er cam in their heads to doubt it,
Till chiels gat up and wad confute it,
An' ca'd it wrang;

An' muckle din there was about it,
Baith loud and lang.

Some herds, weel learn'd upo' the beuk, Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk, For 'twas the auld moon turn'd a neuk, An' out o' sight,

An' backlins-comin, to the leuk,

She grew mair bright.

This was denied, it was affirm'd;
The herds an' hissles were alarm'd;
The rev'rend gray-beards rav'd an' storm'd,
That beardless laddies

Should think they better were inform'd
Than their auld daddies.

Frae less to mair it gaed to sticks;
Frae words an' aiths to blours an' nicks;
And monie a fallow gat his licks,

Wi' hearty crunt;

An' some, to learn them for their tricks, Were hang'd an' brunt.

This game was play'd in monie lands,
An' auld light caddies bure sic hands,
That, faith, the youngsters took the sands
Wi' nimble shanks,

Till lairds forbade, by strict commands,
Sic bluidy pranks.