Ye creepin' beasts that hotch and wheel

Through neuks o' breeks, and ye that speel,
Swalt, gray and fat, now lift ilk heel
Wi' gleefu' speed;

And up the seams in hun'ers reel,

Since Rabby's dead.

Assemble a' ye swarmin' legions,

Baith jumpin' black and creeshy sage anes,
And, rank and file, parade your cage ance,
Nor needless dread,

But loud proclaim through a' yer regions,
That Rabby's dead.

Nae mair his thum's to death shall post ye;
Nae mair his needle points shall toast ye;
Nor shall his horrid goose e'er roast ye,
For hear't, oh lice!

Death's made yer foe as cauld and frosty,
As ony ice.

Wi' wonder aft I've seen him worry
Up cogs o' kail in hungry hurry;
Grip up the cheese in gaping fury,

And hew down slices,
Syne punds o't in his entrails bury,
In lumps and pieces.

Twa pints o' weel-boilt solid sowins,
Wi' whauks o' gude ait-far'le cowins,

Synt down wi' whey, or whiskey lowins,

Before he'd want,

Wad scarce ha'e ser't the wretch to chew ance, Or choke a gant.

Yet Rabby aye was dousely dautet;
For soon as ilka dish was clautet,

He'd lift his looves and een, and fa' to't,
Owre plates and banes,

And lengthen out a grace weel sautet
Wi' holy granes.

Aft ha'e I heard him tell o' frights,
Sad waefu' sounds and dreary sights,
He's aften got frae warlock wights,

And Spunkie's bleeze,

Gaun hame through muirs and eerie heights
O' black fir trees.

Ae night auld Bessie Baird him keepet,
Thrang clouting claes till twall was chappet;
But soon he's got his kyte weel stappet
Wi' something stout;

And goose in's nieve, right snugly happet,
He daunert out.

Maist hame, he met a lang black chiel,
Wi' huggers, stilts, and pocks o' meal,
Wha drew a durk o' glancin steel

To rob an' maul him.

Rab rais't his brod wi' desp'rate wheel,
And left him sprawlin'.

Though aft by fiends and witches chas't,
And mony a dead man's glowrin' ghaist;
Yet on his knees he ae time fac't

The De'il himsel';

And sent him aff in dreadfu' haste,

Roarin' to h―ll.

But oh, ae night proved his mishap,
Curse on the wide-moutht whiskey cap;

Beware, beware o' sic fell sap,

Ye tailor chiels,

For Rabby drank owre deep a drap

O' Janet Steel's.

Mirk was the night-out Rabby doitet,

Whiles owre big stanes, his shins he knoitet,
Alangst the dam the bodie stoitet,

'Wi' staucherin' flounge,

Till, hale-sale, in the lade he cloitet,
Wi' dreadfu' plunge.

Loud though he roart, nane was asteer,
His yells and fearfu' granes to hear;
The current suckt him near and near,
Till, wi' a whirl,

The big wheel crusht his guts and gear,
Like ony burrel.

Next morning, gin the peep o' day,
Alang the stanes cauld dead he lay;
Crowds ran to hear the fatal fray,

Wives, weans, and men

Lamentin', while they saw his clay,
Poor Rabby's end.

First Epistle to Mr. Andrew Clark.

Falkland, October

FROM that same spot where once a palace stood,
Now hanging drear, in tott'ring fragments, rude;
While through the roofless walls the weather howls,
The haunt of pigeons and of lonely owls.)
These lines receive-for, hark! the lashing rain,
In streaming torrents pours along the plain :
Yet, snugly here I sit, with quiet blest;
While my poor pack sits perching on a chest.

To him whose soul on fancy's heights ne'er soar'd,

How painful Solitude, and how abhorr'd;

Time tardy steals, we curse the lazy sage;

And ling'ring moments lengthen to an age.

a A small Town in Fifeshire, where our Scots Kings used sometimes to reside.

Not so with him on whom the Muses smile;
Each hour they sweeten, and each care beguile;
Yet scorn to visit, or ev'n once be kind,
While bustling bus'ness justles through the mind:
But, when retir'd from noise, he lonely roves,
Through flow'ry banks or solitary groves;
Leans on the velvet turf-explores a book,
Or eyes the bubbling of the ceaseless brook;
The Muse descends, and swells his throbbing breast,
To joys, to raptures ne'er to be exprest.

Curst is the wretch whom cruel fate removes
Far from his native, and the few he loves;
Who, ever-pensive, ponders on the past,
And shrinks and trembles at misfortune's blast;
His is the fate that ev'n infernals share;
Pain, without hope, and mis'ry and despair.

There was a time (no distant date I own)
When such my fate was, and my every groan :
When struggling hard for base unlasting pelf;
I stabbed, I tortured, and I racked myself.

And what, I pray, did all these sighs avail,
For ever hapless, and for ever pale?
Inglorious period, Heavens! it fires my soul,
When such reflections through my bosom roll;
To hang the head with sorrow and remorse,
From one poor evil raising thousands worse.

That grief involves us in unnumbered ills,
That with our courage all our success fails,
That Heaven abhors and showers with fury dread,
Tormenting ills on the repiner's head,
You'll freely own; but list while I relate

A short adventure of a wretch's fate:

A wretch whom fortune long has held in pain,

And whose each hour some black misfortunes stain.

O

"Twas when the fields were swept of autumn's store,
And growling winds the fading foliage tore,
Behind the Lowmon hilla, the short-lived light,
Descending slowly ushered in the night:

When from the noisy town, with mournful look,
His lonely way a meagre pedlar took.

Deep were his frequent sighs-carless his pace,
And oft the tear stole down his cheerless face;
Beneath a load of silks, and sorrow bent,
Nor knew, nor wished to know the road he went;
Nor cared the coming night, or stormy air,
For all his soul was welt'ring in despair.

Dark fell the night, a grim, increasing gloom;
Dark as the horrors of his fancied doom:

And nought was seen and nought was heard around,
But light'ning's gleams and thunder's roar profound;
Swelled by he wind that howled along the plain,
Fierce rattling hail and unrelenting rain,
While from dark thickets issued as he past,
Wild groans of branches bending from the blast.
Deep sunk his steps beneath the pressing load,
As down the rough declivity he trod,
And gain'd the unknown vale; there, all distrest,
Prone on the road himself he cursing cast.
And while the north in ceaseless rigour blew,
And light'ning mingling with the tempest flew,
Amid the dismal gloom he raging spurn'd
His miry load, and thus his mis'ry mourn'd.
"O mighty Heavens! and am I forc'd to bear
The scourge of fate, eternally severe?
On me alone shall all thy fury roar?

Shall this determined vengeance ne'er be o'er?
Wretch that I am! while ev'ry village hind,
Sits in soft peace or dawny sleep reclined,

a A huge mountain that rises near Falkland.