Then all I want (O, do thou grant THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. INSCRIBED TO R. A****, ESQ. Let not ambition mock their useful toil, I. GRAY. My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend! My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise: To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What A**** in a cottage would have been; Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween; II. November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; 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, 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. III. At length his lonely cot appears in view, His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil, IV. Belyve the elder hairns come drapping in, Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown, Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. V. Wi' joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers: The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd fleet; Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; More pointed still we make ourselves, And man, whose heav'n-erected face Makes countless thousands mourn! VIII. See yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight, To give him leave to toil; IX. If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave,- E'er planted in my mind? If not, why am I subject to His cruelty or scorn? Or why has man the will and pow'r To make his fellow mourn? X. Yet, let not this too much, my son, The poor, oppressed, honest man, Had never, sure, been born, Had there not been some recompense XI. O death! the poor man's dearest friend, A PRAYER IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. I. ✪ THOU unknown, Almighty Cause Of all my hope and fear! In whose dread presence, ere an hour, Perhaps I must appear! II. If I have wander'd in those paths Of life I ought to shun; As something, loudly, in my breast, III. Thou know'st that thou hast formed me IV. Where human weakness has come short, Do thou, All-Good! for such thou art, V. Where with intention I have err'd, No other plea I have, But, Thou art good! and goodness still STANZAS ON THE SAME OCCASION. WHY am I loth to leave this earthly scene? Is it departing pangs my soul alarms? Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode ? For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms; I tremble to approach an angry God, And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod. |