We'll sing auld Coila's plains an' fells, Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells, Her banks an' braes, her dens and dells, Where glorious Wallace

Aft bure the gree, as story tells,

Frae southron billies.

At Wallace' name what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood!
Oft have our fearless fathers strode
By Wallace' side,

Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod,
Or glorious dy❜d.

O, sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods, When lintwhites chant amang the buds, And jinkin hares, in amorous whids, Their loves enjoy,

While thro' the braes the cushat croods Wi' wailfu' cry!

Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me When winds raye thro' the naked tree; Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree

Are hoary gray;

Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,

Dark'ning the day!

O Nature! a' thy shews an' forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms!
Whether the simmer kindly warms
Wi' life an' light,

Or winter howls, in gusty storms,

VOL. I.

The lang dark night!

R

The Muse, nae poet ever fand her,
Till by himsel he learn'd to wander
Adown some trotting burn's meander,
An' no think lang;

O sweet! to stray an' pensive ponder
A heart-felt sang!

The warly race may drudge an' drive,
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an' strive,
Let me fair Nature's face descrive,

And I, wi' pleasure,

Shall let the busy grumbling hive

Bum owre their treasure.

Fareweel, my rhyme-composing brither!' We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither: Now let us lay our heads thegither,

In love fraternal:

May Envy wallop in a tether,

Black fiend, infernal!

While highlandmen hate tolls and taxes; While moorlan' herds like guid fat braxies; While terra firma, on her axis

Diurnal turns,

Count on a friend, in faith an' practice,
In Robert Burns.

POSTSCRIPT.

My memory's no worth a preen;
I had amaist forgotten clean,

Ye bade me write you what they mean
By this New-Light1,

'Bout which our herds sae aft hae been
Maist like to fight.

In days when mankind were but callans
At grammar, logic, an' sic talents,

They took nae pains their speech to balance,
Or rules to gie,

But spak their thoughts in plain, braid Lallans,
Like you or me.

In thae auld times, they thought the moon,
Just like a sark, or pair o' shoon,

Wore by degrees, till her last roon,

Gaed past their viewing,

An' shortly after she was done,

They gat a new ane.

This past for certain, undisputed;
It ne'er cam i' their heads to doubt it,
Till chiels gat up an' wad confute it,
An' ca'd it wrang;
An' muckle din there was about it,
Baith loud and lang.

Some herds, weel learn'd upo' the beuk,
Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk;
For 'twas the auld moon turn'd a neuk,
An' out o' sight,

An' backlins-comin, to the leuk,

She grew mair bright.

1 See note, p. 60.

This was deny'd, it was affirmed;
The herds an' hissels were alarm'd;
The rev'rend grey-beards rav'd an' storm'd,
That beardless laddies

Should think they better were inform'd

Than their auld daddies.

Frae less to mair it gaed to sticks;
Frae words an' aiths to clours an' nicks;
An' monie a fallow gat his licks,

Wi' hearty crunt;

An' some, to learn them for their tricks,
Were hang'd an' brunt.

This game was play'd in monie lands,
An' auld-light caddies bure sic hands,
That faith, the youngsters took the sands
Wi' nimble shanks,

The lairds forbade, by strict commands,
Sic bluidy pranks.

But new-light herds gat sic a cowe,
Folk thought them ruin'd stick-an'-stowe,
Till now amaist on ev'ry knowe

Ye'll find ane placed;

An' some, their new-light fair avow,

Just quite barefac'd.

Nae doubt the auld-light flocks are bleatin; Their zealous herds are vex'd an' sweatin; Mysel, I've even seen them greetin

Wi' girnin spite,

To hear the moon sae sadly lied on

By word an' write,

But shortly they will cowe the louns!
Some auld-light herds in neebor towns
Are mind't, in things they ca' balloons,
To tak a flight,

An' stay a month amang the moons,
An' see them right.

Guid observation they will gie them;
An' when the auld moon's gaun to lea'e them,
The hindmost shaird, they'll fetch it wi' them,
Just i' their pouch,

An' when the new-light billies see them,
I think they'll crouch!

Sae, ye observe that a' this clatter
Is naething but a 'moonshine matter;'
But tho' dull prose-folk Latin splatter
In logic tulzie,

I hope, we bardies ken some better

Than mind sic brulzie.

EPISTLE TO JOHN RANKIN,

ENCLOSING SOME POEMS.

O ROUGH, rude, ready-witted Rankin,
The wale o' cocks for fun and drinkin!
There's mony godly folks are thinkin,

Your dreams an' tricks

Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin,

Straught to auld Nick's.

A certain humorous dream of his was then making noise

in the country-side.