| |
| MY lord, I know your noble ear | |
| Woe ne’er assails in vain; | |
| Emboldened thus, I beg you ’ll hear | |
| Your humble slave complain, | |
| How saucy Phœbus’ scorching beams, | 5 |
| In flaming summer-pride, | |
| Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams, | |
| And drink my crystal tide. | |
| |
| The lightly jumpin’ glowrin’ trouts, | |
| That through my waters play, | 10 |
| If, in their random, wanton spouts, | |
| They near the margin stray; | |
| If, hapless chance! they linger lang, | |
| I ’m scorching up so shallow, | |
| They ’re left the whitening stanes amang, | 15 |
| In gasping death to wallow. | |
| |
| Last day I grat wi’ spite and teen, | |
| As Poet Burns came by, | |
| That to a bard I should be seen | |
| Wi’ half my channel dry: | 20 |
| A panegyric rhyme, I ween, | |
| Even as I was he shored me; | |
| But had I in my glory been, | |
| He, kneeling, wad adored me. | |
| |
| Here, foaming down the shelvy rocks, | 25 |
| In twisting strength I rin; | |
| There, high my boiling torrent smokes, | |
| Wild roaring o’er a linn: | |
| Enjoying large each spring and well, | |
| As nature gave them me, | 30 |
| I am, although I say’t mysel’, | |
| Worth gaun a mile to see. | |
| |
| Would then my noble master please | |
| To grant my highest wishes, | |
| He ’ll shade my banks wi’ towering trees, | 35 |
| And bonny spreading bushes. | |
| Delighted doubly then, my lord, | |
| You ’ll wander on my banks, | |
| And listen monie a grateful bird | |
| Return you tuneful thanks. | 40 |
| |
| The sober laverock, warbling wild, | |
| Shall to the skies aspire; | |
| The gowdspink, Music’s gayest child, | |
| Shall sweetly join the choir; | |
| The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear, | 45 |
| The mavis mild and mellow, | |
| The robin pensive autumn cheer, | |
| In all her locks of yellow. | |
| |
| This, too, a covert shall insure | |
| To shield them from the storm; | 50 |
| And coward maukin sleep secure, | |
| Low in her grassy form. | |
| Here shall the shepherd make his seat, | |
| To weave his crown of flowers; | |
| Or find a sheltering safe retreat | 55 |
| From prone descending showers. | |
| |
| And here, by sweet endearing stealth, | |
| Shall meet the loving pair, | |
| Despising worlds with all their wealth | |
| As empty idle care. | 60 |
| The flowers shall vie in all their charms | |
| The hour of heaven to grace, | |
| And birks extend their fragrant arms | |
| To screen the dear embrace. | |
| |
| Here haply too, at vernal dawn, | 65 |
| Some musing bard may stray, | |
| And eye the smoking, dewy lawn, | |
| And misty mountain gray; | |
| Or by the reaper’s nightly beam, | |
| Mild-checkering through the trees, | 70 |
| 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, | 75 |
| Their shadows’ watery bed! | |
| Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest | |
| My craggy cliffs adorn; | |
| And, for the little songster’s nest, | |
| The close embowering thorn. | 80 |
| |
| So may old Scotia’s darling hope, | |
| Your little angel band, | |
| Spring, like their fathers, up to prop | |
| Their honored native land! | |
| So may, through Albion’s farthest ken, | 85 |
| To social-flowing glasses, | |
| The grace be,—“Athole’s honest men, | |
| And Athole’s bonny lasses!” | |
| |
