TO A FRIEND WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING NO MORE POETRY. DEAR Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe I ween And promised for thee, that thou shouldst renounce Yes-thou wert plunged, but with forgetful hand For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed Boy, And I have arrows mystically dipped, Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns dead? And shall he die unwept, and sink to Earth "Without the meed of one melodious tear?" Thy Burns, and Nature's own beloved Bard, Who to the "Illustrious † of his native Land "So properly did look for Patronage." Ghost of Mæcenas! hide thy blushing face! They snatched him from the Sickle and the Plough— gauge Ale-Firkins. Το Oh! for shame return! On a bleak Rock, midway the Aonian mount, * Vide Pind. Olym. ii. 1. 156. + Verbatim from Burns's dedication of his Poem to the No bility and Gentry of the Caledonian Hunt. Of night-shade, or its red and tempting fruit. These with stopped nostril and glove-guarded hand Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine The Illustrious Brow of Scotch Nobility. 1796. TO A GENTLEMAN. COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL MIND. FRIEND of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good! Into my heart have I received that Lay More than historic, that prophetic Lay Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright) Of the Human Spirit, thou hast dared to tell Theme hard as high! Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears (The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth) And currents self-determined, as might seem, When Power streamed from thee, and thy soul received Of Fancies fair, and milder hours of youth, Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded, Amid a mighty nation jubilant, When from the general Heart of Human kind Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity! |