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| MY lov’d, my honour’d, much respected friend! | |
| No mercenary bard his homage pays; | |
| With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end, | |
| My dearest meed, a friend’s esteem and praise: | |
| To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, | 5 |
| The lowly train in life’s sequester’d scene, | |
| The native feelings strong, the guileless ways, | |
| What Aiken in a cottage would have been; | |
| Ah! tho’ his worth unknown, far happier there I ween! | |
| |
| November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh; | 10 |
| The short’ning winter-day is near a close; | |
| The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; | |
| The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose: | |
| The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,— | |
| This night his weekly moil is at an end, | 15 |
| Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, | |
| Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, | |
| And weary, o’er the moor, his course does hameward bend. | |
| |
| At length his lonely cot appears in view, | |
| Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; | 20 |
| Th’ expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through | |
| To meet their dead, wi’ flichterin noise and glee. | |
| His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie, | |
| His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile, | |
| The lisping infant, prattling on his knee, | 25 |
| Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile, | |
| And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil. | |
| |
| Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, | |
| At service out, amang the farmers roun’; | |
| Some ca’ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin | 30 |
| A cannie errand to a neibor town: | |
| Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown, | |
| In youthfu’ bloom-love sparkling in her e’e— | |
| Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown, | |
| Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, | 35 |
| To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. | |
| |
| With joy unfeign’d, brothers and sisters meet, | |
| And each for other’s weelfare kindly speirs: | |
| The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnotic’d fleet: | |
| Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears. | 40 |
| The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; | |
| Anticipation forward points the view; | |
| The mother, wi’ her needle and her shears, | |
| Gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new; | |
| The father mixes a’ wi’ admonition due. | 45 |
| |
| Their master’s and their mistress’ command, | |
| The younkers a’ are warned to obey; | |
| And mind their labours wi’ an eydent hand, | |
| And ne’er, tho’ out o’ sight, to jauk or play; | |
| “And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway, | 50 |
| And mind your duty, duly, morn and night; | |
| Lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray, | |
| Implore His counsel and assisting might: | |
| They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright.” | |
| |
| But hark! a rap comes gently to the door; | 55 |
| Jenny, wha kens the meaning o’ the same, | |
| Tells how a neibor lad came o’er the moor, | |
| To do some errands, and convoy her hame. | |
| The wily mother sees the conscious flame | |
| Sparkle in Jenny’s e’e, and flush her cheek; | 60 |
| With heart-struck anxious care, enquires his name, | |
| While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; | |
| Weel-pleased the mother hears, it’s nae wild, worthless rake. | |
| |
| Wi’ kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben; | |
| A strappin youth, he takes the mother’s eye; | 65 |
| Blythe Jenny sees the visit’s no ill ta’en; | |
| The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. | |
| The youngster’s artless heart o’erflows wi’ joy, | |
| But blate an’ laithfu’, scarce can weel behave; | |
| The mother, wi’ a woman’s wiles, can spy | 70 |
| What makes the youth sae bashfu’ and sae grave, | |
| Weel-pleas’d to think her bairn’s respected like the lave. | |
| |
| O happy love! where love like this is found: | |
| O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! | |
| I’ve paced much this weary, mortal round, | 75 |
| And sage experience bids me this declare,— | |
| “If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare— | |
| One cordial in this melancholy vale, | |
| ’Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair | |
| In other’sarms, breathe out the tender tale, | 80 |
| Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.” | |
| |
| Is there, in human form, that bears a heart, | |
| A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth! | |
| That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, | |
| Betray sweet Jenny’s unsuspecting youth? | 85 |
| Curse on his perjur’d arts! dissembling smooth! | |
| Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil’d? | |
| Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, | |
| Points to the parents fondling o’er their child? | |
| Then paints the ruin’d maid, and their distraction wild? | 90 |
| |
| But now the supper crowns their simple board, | |
| The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia’s food; | |
| The sowp their only hawkie does afford, | |
| That, ’yont the hallan snugly chows her cood: | |
| The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, | 95 |
| To grace the lad, her weel-hain’d kebbuck, fell; | |
| And aft he’s prest, and aft he ca’s it guid: | |
| The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell | |
| How t’was a towmond auld, sin’ lint was i’ the bell. | |
| |
| The cheerfu’ supper done, wi’ serious face, | 100 |
| They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; | |
| The sire turns o’er, with patriarchal grace, | |
| The big ha’bible, ance his father’s pride: | |
| His bonnet rev’rently is laid aside, | |
| His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare; | 105 |
| Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, | |
| He wales a portion with judicious care; | |
| And “Let us worship God!” he says with solemn air. | |
| |
| They chant their artless notes in simple guise, | |
| They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim; | 110 |
| Perhaps Dundee’s wild-warbling measures rise; | |
| Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name; | |
| Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame; | |
| The sweetest far of Scotia’s holy lays: | |
| Compar’d with these, Italian trills are tame; | 115 |
| The tickl’d ears no heart-felt raptures raise; | |
| Nae unison hae they with our Creator’s praise. | |
| |
| The priest-like father reads the sacred page, | |
| How Abram was the friend of God on high; | |
| Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage | 120 |
| With Amalek’s ungracious progeny; | |
| Or how the royal bard did groaning lie | |
| Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire; | |
| Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; | |
| Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire; | 125 |
| Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. | |
| |
| Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, | |
| How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; | |
| How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, | |
| Had not on earth whereon to lay His head: | 130 |
| How His first followers and servants sped; | |
| The precepts sage they wrote to many a land: | |
| How he, who lone in Patmos banished, | |
| Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, | |
| And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounc’d by Heaven’s command. | 135 |
| |
| Then, kneeling down to Heaven’s Eternal King, | |
| The saint, the father, and the husband prays: | |
| Hope “springs exulting on triumphant wing,” 1 | |
| That thus they all shall meet in future days, | |
| There, ever bask in uncreated rays, | 140 |
| No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, | |
| Together hymning their Creator’s praise, | |
| In such society, yet still more dear; | |
| While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere | |
| |
| Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride, | 145 |
| In all the pomp of method, and of art; | |
| When men display to congregations wide | |
| Devotion’s ev’ry grace, except the heart! | |
| The Power, incens’d, the pageant will desert, | |
| The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; | 150 |
| But haply, in some cottage far apart, | |
| May hear, well-pleas’d, the language of the soul; | |
| And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll. | |
| |
| Then homeward all take off their sev’ral way; | |
| The youngling cottagers retire to rest: | 155 |
| The parent-pair their secret homage pay, | |
| And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, | |
| That he who stills the raven’s clam’rous nest, | |
| And decks the lily fair in flow’ry pride, | |
| Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, | 160 |
| For them and for their little ones provide; | |
| But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. | |
| |
| From scenes like these, old Scotia’s grandeur springs, | |
| That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad: | |
| Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, | 165 |
| “An honest man’s the noblest work of God;” | |
| And certes, in fair virtue’s heavenly road, | |
| The cottage leaves the palace far behind; | |
| What is a lordling’s pomp? a cumbrous load, | |
| Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, | 170 |
| Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin’d! | |
| |
| O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! | |
| For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, | |
| Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil | |
| Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! | 175 |
| And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent | |
| From luxury’s contagion, weak and vile! | |
| Then howe’er crowns and coronets be rent, | |
| A virtuous populace may rise the while, | |
| And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov’d isle. | 180 |
| |
| O Thou! who pour’d the patriotic tide, | |
| That stream’d thro’ Wallace’s undaunted heart, | |
| Who dar’d to nobly stem tyrannic pride, | |
| Or nobly die, the second glorious part: | |
| (The patriot’s God peculiarly thou art, | 185 |
| His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) | |
| O never, never Scotia’s realm desert; | |
| But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard | |
| In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! | |
