But some day ye may gnaw your nails, Or rattl'd dice wi' Charlie By night or day. Yet aft a ragged cowte's been known To mak a noble aiver; So, ye may doucely fill a throne, For a' their clishmaclaver: There, him at Agincourt wha shone, And yet, wi' funny, queer Sir John2, For monie a day. For you, right rev'rend Osnaburg, Young, royal Tarry Breeks, I learn, Then heave aboard your grapple airn, An', large upo' her quarter, 1 King Henry V. 3 Alluding to the sailor's amour. Come full that day. 2 Sir John Falstaff: vide Shakspeare. newspaper account of a certain royal Ye, lastly, bonnie blossoms a' Ye royal lasses dainty, Heav'n mak you guid as weel as braw, God bless you a'! consider now But, ere the course o' life be thro', It may That yet hae tarrow't at it; Fu' clean that day. THE VISION. DUAN FIRST'. THE sun had clos'd the winter day, To kail-yards green, While faithless snaws ilk step betray Whare she has been. 4 Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See his Cath-Loda, vol. ii. of M'Pherson's translation. The thresher's weary flingin-tree Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie, I gaed to rest. There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek, An' heard the restless rattons squeak About the riggin. All in this mottie, misty clime, But stringin blethers up in rhyme, For fools to sing. Had I to guid advice but harkit, My cash account; While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit, Is a' th' amount. I started, mutt'ring, blockhead! coof! Or some rash aith, That I, henceforth, would be rhyme-proof Till my last breath- When click! the string the snick did draw! And jee! the door gaed to the wa'; An' by my ingle-lowe I saw, Now bleezin bright, A tight, outlandish Hizzie, braw, Come full in sight. Ye needna doubt, I held my whisht; In some wild glen; When sweet, like modest worth, she blusht, And stepped ben. Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs By that same token; An' come to stop those reckless vows, Wou'd soon been broken. A hair-brain'd, sentimental trace,' Was strongly marked in her face; A wildly-witty, rustic grace Her Shone full upon her; eye, e'en turn'd on empty space, Beam'd keen with honour. Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen; Till half a leg was scrimply seen; And such a leg! my bonnie Jean Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean, Nane else cam near it. Her mantle large, of greenish hue, Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw And seem'd, to my astonish'd view, A well known land. Here, rivers in the sea were lost; There, distant shone Art's lofty boast, The lordly dome. Here, Doon pour'd down his far-fetch'd floods; There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds: Auld hermit Ayr staw thro' his woods, On to the shore; And many a lesser torrent scuds, With seeming roar. Low, in a sandy valley spread, She boasts a race, To ev'ry nobler virtue bred, And polished grace. By stately tow'r or palace fair, Or ruins pendent in the air, Bold stems of heroes, here and there, I could discern; Some seem'd to muse, some seem'd to dare, With feature stern. |