I'll grasp thy waist, and fondly prest,
Swear how I love thee dearly:
Not vernal showers to budding flowers,
Not autumn to the farmer,

So dear can be as thou to me,
My fair, my lovely charmer!1

INSCRIPTION ON THE TOMBSTONE OF WILLIAM BURNESS.

Он

ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains, Draw near with pious rev'rence and attend! Here lie the loving husband's dear remains, The tender father, and the gen'rous friend.

1 Mrs. Begg remembers, about the time of her brother's attachment to Jean Armour, seeing this song freshly written out amongst his papers, with the name "Jeanie" instead of "Peggy," and the word "Armour" instead of "charmer," at the end of the first and fifth verses. She therefore suspects that the poet has, through inadvertency, made a mistake in assigning this song to Miss Thomson. The present editor has not deemed himself justified on such a ground to reject so direct a statement of the poet himself. Perhaps he may have written the song for Miss Thomson, and only temporarily dethroned her name for the sake of a newer love. It seems next to impossible that Burns could have ever published the song with a change so calculated to debase its poetical value as the substitution of "Armour" for "charmer."

The pitying heart that felt for human wo;

The dauntless heart that feared no human pride;

The friend of man, to vice alone a foe;

“For even his failings leaned to virtue's side."1

A PRAYER IN THE PROSPECT OF
DEATH.

In the course of the summer 1784, the health of the poet gave way to a serious extent. The movements of the heart were affected, and he became liable to fainting fits, particularly in the night-time. The youthful bard, feeling that death hovered over him, and reflecting with compunction on the errors partly involved in the cause of his malady, was for a time

under very serious impressions. He at this time

wrote what he calls in his Commonplace-book “a Prayer when fainting fits and other alarming symptoms of a pleurisy, or some other dangerous disorder which still threatens me, first put nature on the alarm." It was subsequently published under the more simple title of A Prayer in the Prospect of Death.

OH thou unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear!

1 Goldsmith.

In whose dread presence, ere an hour,
Perhaps I must appear!

If I have wandered in those paths
Of life I ought to shun,

As something, loudly, in my breast,
Remonstrates I have done;

Thou know'st that Thou hast formèd me
With passions wild and strong;
And listening to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.

Where human weakness has come short,

Or frailty stept aside,

Do thou, All-good! - for such thou art,

In shades of darkness hide.

Where with intention I have erred,

No other plea I have,

But, Thou art good; and goodness still
Delighteth to forgive.

-

STANZAS ON THE SAME OCCASION.

WHY am I loth to leave this earthly scene? Have I so found it full of pleasing charms?

Some drops of joy with draughts of ill be

tween:

Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing

storms:

Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?

Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode? For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms; I tremble to approach an angry God,

And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.

Fain would I say, "Forgive my foul offence!"
Fain promise never more to disobey;
But should my Author health again dispense,
Again I might desert fair Virtue's way:
Again in Folly's path might go astray;

Again exalt the brute, and sink the man; Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray, Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan?

Who sin so oft have mourned, yet to temptation ran?

Oh Thou, great Governor of all below!
If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to

blow,

Or still the tumult of the raging sea: With that controlling power assist even me Those headlong furious passions to confine;

For all unfit I feel my powers to be,

To rule their torrent in the allowed line; Oh, aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine ! 1

THE FIRST PSALM.

To the same period I am disposed to refer two translations of psalms, which appeared in the Edinburgh edition of his poems.

THE man, in life wherever placed,

Hath happiness in store,

Who walks not in the wicked's way,
Nor learns their guilty lore!

Nor from the seat of scornful pride
Casts forth his eyes abroad,

But with humility and awe

Still walks before his God.

That man shall flourish like the trees
Which by the streamlets grow;
The fruitful top is spread on high,
And firm the root below.

1 In Mr. Dick's MS. is apparently an earlier copy of this poem, containing some variations expressive of deeper contrition than what here appears. After " Again I might desert fair Virtue's way," comes, " Again by passion would be led astray." The second line of the last stanza is, "If one so black with crimes dare on thee call."