| |
| HAIL, Poesie! thou Nymph reserv’d! | |
| In chase o’ thee, what crowds hae swerv’d | |
| Frae common sense, or sunk enerv’d | |
| ’Mang heaps o’ clavers: | |
| And och! o’er aft thy joes hae starv’d, | 5 |
| ’Mid a’ thy favours! | |
| |
| Say, Lassie, why, thy train amang, | |
| While loud the trump’s heroic clang, | |
| And sock or buskin skelp alang | |
| To death or marriage; | 10 |
| Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang | |
| But wi’ miscarriage? | |
| |
| In Homer’s craft Jock Milton thrives; | |
| Eschylus’ pen Will Shakespeare drives; | |
| Wee Pope, the knurlin’, till him rives | 15 |
| Horatian fame; | |
| In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives | |
| Even Sappho’s flame. | |
| |
| But thee, Theocritus, wha matches? | |
| They’re no herd’s ballats, Maro’s catches; | 20 |
| Squire Pope but busks his skinklin’ patches | |
| O’ heathen tatters: | |
| I pass by hunders, nameless wretches, | |
| That ape their betters. | |
| |
| In this braw age o’ wit and lear, | 25 |
| Will nane the Shepherd’s whistle mair | |
| Blaw sweetly in its native air, | |
| And rural grace; | |
| And, wi’ the far-fam’d Grecian, share | |
| A rival place? | 30 |
| |
| Yes! there is ane; a Scottish callan! | |
| There’s ane; come forrit, honest Allan! | |
| Thou need na jouk behint the hallan, | |
| A chiel sae clever; | |
| The teeth o’ time may gnaw Tantallan, | 35 |
| But thou’s for ever. | |
| |
| Thou paints auld Nature to the nines, | |
| In thy sweet Caledonian lines; | |
| Nae gowden stream thro’ myrtle twines, | |
| Where Philomel, | 40 |
| While nightly breezes sweep the vines, | |
| Her griefs will tell! | |
| |
| In gowany glens thy burnie strays, | |
| Where bonie lasses bleach their claes, | |
| Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes, | 45 |
| Wi’ hawthorns gray, | |
| Where blackbirds join the shepherd’s lays, | |
| At close o’ day. | |
| |
| Thy rural loves are Nature’s sel’; | |
| Nae bombast spates o’ nonsense swell; | 50 |
| Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell | |
| O’ witchin love, | |
| That charm that can the strongest quell, | |
| The sternest move. | |
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