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Now drags, relentless, down the rugged vale,
And stains the forest with a bloody trail:
When, lo! a champion of the savage race,
The shaggy lion, rushes to the place,
With roar tremendous seizes on the prey,
Exasp'rate see! the tiger springs away,

Stops short, and maddens at the monarch's growl,
And through his eyes darts all his furious soul,
Half-willed, yet half afraid to dare a bound,
He eyes his loss, and roars and tears the ground.
So looked stern Ralphus o'er the flowing coast,
To see his hopes, his tripe and labour lost.
In rage he kicked the fragments, when, behold!
Forth from the tripe a monstrous worm unrolled
Its lazy length, then snarling wild its crest,
In accents shrill the shudd'ring youth addrest.
"I am Disease; cursed be the unknown he
Who marked my purpose of destroying thee.
Had it succeeded, hear this, trembling hear,
Next morn had seen thee floating on a bier."
It spoke, and grinned, when Ralph, with vengeful
speed,

A rock's huge fragment dashed down on its head.
Deep groaned the wretch in death, Ralph trembling

stole

One backward glance, then fled th' accursed bowl.

Ebening, an Ode.

Now day departing in the west,

With gaudy splendour lures the eye;

The sun, declining, sinks to rest,
And evening overshades the sky.

And is the green extended lawn,

The waving grove-the flowery mead,
The charms of hill and dale withdrawn,
And all their blooming beauties hid?

They are but lift aloft thine eye,
Where all these sparkling glories roll;
Those mighty wonders of the sky,
That glad and elevate the soul.

Day's undisguised effulgent blaze
Adorns the mead or mountain blue;
But Night amid her train displays
Whole worlds revolving to the view.

Lone Contemplation musing deep,

This vast stupendous vault explores;
These rolling orbs the roads they keep,
And Night's great Architect adores.

Nor mourns the absent glare of day,
The glitt'ring mead or warbler's song;
For what are birds or meadows gay,
To all that dazzling starry throng.

So when the saint's calm eve draws nigh,
With joy the voice of death he hears;
Heaven opes upon his wond'ring eye,
And earth's poor vision disappears.

Lochwinnoch, a Descriptite Poem.

IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND.

WHEN in the western main our orb of light,
Sinks slowly down from the advancing night,
Mute Sadness hangs o'er all the lonely earth,
Old gloomy Night leads all her horrors forth;
Wild howls the dreary waste, where furies roam,
Harsh hated shrieks start from the ruined dome;
Dread Darkness reigns in melancholy state,
And pensive Nature seems to mourn her fate.

Such was the gloom, dear sir, that wrapt my soul,
Such were the thoughts, and such the sighs that stole
From this poor bosom, when, with tearful view,
I bade Edina and my friend adieu;

Bade him adieu, whose kind engaging art,
Unbounded goodness and inspiring heart,
Has cheered my Muse, and bid her joyous soar,
While Want and Ruin thundered at the door.

Long was the way, the weary way to tread,
Stern Fortune frowned, and ev'ry hope had fled;
How rushed reflection on my tortured mind,
As slow I went, and sighing gazed behind.
Our rural walks, while the gray eastern morn,
Yet faintly breaking, decked the dewy thorn;
Or when linked arm in arm, we peaceful strayed
The meadows round: beneath yon leafy shade
There oft the Muse pursued her soaring flight,
While day was sunk, and reigned the starry night.
Farewell, I cried; a long farewell to you;

Fate cruel urges, happy scenes adieu.

But blest be heaven! when two sad days were past, I reached my peaceful native plains at last; Sweet smiled the Muse to hear the rustics sing, And fond to rise, she stretched her ample wing. On ev'ry side the blooming landscape glow'd; Here shepherds whistled, there the cascade flowed. Heav'ns! had I known what gay, delightful scenes, Of woods and groves adorned these happy plains, Edina's crowds and sooty turrets high,

Should ne'er have cost me one regretting sigh.

Though fair sweet Fortha's banks, though rich her
plains,

Far nobler prospects claim the Muse's strains.
Fate now has led me to green-waving groves,

Blest scenes of innocence and rural loves;

Where cloudy smoke ne'er darkens up the sky,
Nor glaring buildings tire the sick'ning eye;
But spreading meadows wave with flow'ry hay,
And, drowned in grass the milky mothers stray;
While down each vale descends the glitt'ring rill,
And bleating flocks swarm o'er each smiling hill;
And woody vales, where deep retired from sight,
Lone rivers brawl o'er many a horrid height.

If scenes like these can please your roving mind, Or lend one rapture to my dearest friend,

All hail! ve sacred Nine, assist my flight,

To sure

their beauties open to his sight.

Lo at the foot of huge extended hills,
Whose cloudy tops pour down unnumbered rills,
And where loud Calder, rushing from the steep,
Roars to the lake with hoarse resistless sweep,
Lochwinnoch stands, stretched on a rising groun',
In bulk a village, but in worth a town.

Here lives your friend, amid as cheerful swains
As e'er trod o'er the famed Arcadian plains,
Far from the world retired, our only care
In silken gauze to form the flow'rets fair,
To bid beneath our hands gay blossoms rise,
In all the colours of the changing skies.

Dispatched to foreign climes, our beauteous toil Adorn the fair of many a distant isle,

Shield from the scorching heat or shiv'ring storm, And fairer deck out Nature's fairest form.

Such our sweet toils, when Peace, with gladdening smile,

Wraps in her wings our little busy isle;

But when, loud bellowing, furious from afar,
Is heard the uproar of approaching War,

Britannia rousing, when aspiring foes

Call forth her vengeance and provoke her blows,

F

Then all the hero in their bosom burns;

Their country calls and Rage dull Pleasure spurns.
Beneath the throng of many a glitt'ring spear,
In marshalled lines the fearless youths appear,
The drum resounds-they leave their native shore,
On distant coasts to swell the battle's roar;

There quell the furious foe, or see their homes no

more.

But these are harsh extremes; rough Labour now Bathes each firm youth, and hoary parent's brow; Nought shows, but brisk activity around,

The plough-boy's song, the tradesman's hamm'ring sound.

See! from yon vale, in huge enormous height,
Glitt'ring with windows on the admiring sight,
The fabric a swells-within, ten thousand ways
Ingenious Burns his wondrous art displays:
Wheels turning wheels in mystic throngs appear,
To twist the thread, or tortured cotton tear,
While toiling wenches' songs delight the list'ning ear.

At little distance, bord'ring on the lake, Where blooming shrubs from golden branches shake Ambrosial sweets, 'midst shelt'ring coverts high, Fair Castle-Sempleb glitters on the eye:

As when bright Phoebus bursts some gloomy shroud,
And glorious issues from the darksome cloud,
Superbly enters on the empyrean blue,

And shines, revealed, to the enraptured view;
So from the trees the beauteous structure opes,
Sheltered with hills, and many a deep'ning copse.
The wondering stranger stops to admire the scene;
The dazzling mansion and the shaven green;

a A large cotton mill lately erected here.

b The elegant country seat of the Hon. William M'Dowal, the Member of Parliament for Ayrshire.

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