But what nor wind, nor flood, nor Heaven could bend
We tumbled down, my bucks! and made surrender.
What are your far-famed warriors to us,
'Bout whom historians make such mighty fuss?
Posterity may think it was uncommon
That Troy should be pillag'd for a woman;
But ours your ten years' sieges will excel,
And justly be esteem'd the nonpareil:
Our cause is slighter than a dame's betrothing;
For all these mighty feats have sprung from nothing.
JUST now in fair Edina lives,
That famous antient town,
At a known place hight Black-fryr's wynd
A knight of old renown.
A Druid's sacred form he bears
With saucer eyes of fire,
An antique hat on's head he wears
Like Ramsay the town cryer.
Down in the wynd his mansion stands,
All gloomy dark within,
Here mangled books like blood and bones
Strew'd in a giant's den.
Crude-indigested-half-devoured-
On groaning shelves they're thrown,
Such manuscripts no eye can read—
No hand write, but his own.
*This poem is supposed to describe James Cummyns of the Herald Office, who was, along with the poet, a member of the Cape Club.
No prophet he like Sydrophel
Can future times explore-
But what has happened he can tell
Five hundred years and more.
A walking alm'nack he appears
Stept from some mouldy wall,
Worn out of use, through dust and years,
Like scutcheons in his hall.
By rusty coins old kings he'll trace,
And know their air and mien--
King Fergus he knows well by face,
Though George he ne'er has seen.
This wight th' outsides of Churches lov'd
Almost unto a sin,
Spires Gothic of more use he prov'd
Than pulpits are within.
Ye jack-daws, that are us'd to talk
Like us of human race-
When night you see J-C- walk
Loud chatter forth his praise.
When e'er the fatal day shall come-
For come, alas! it must-
When this good Knight must stay at home
And turn to antique dust;
The solemn dirge ye owls prepare,
Ye bats more hoarsely skreek—
Croak, all ye ravens, round the bier,
And all ye church-mice squeak!
To Jemmy Neeham, our Recorder,
Herald and purs'vants of that order,
Whereas 'tis meant and shewn to me
This month of August seventy-three
That some unlicensed prying blades
Of late have occupied the Shades,
The like in future to prevent
It is our sov-er-eign intent
That from this month of August so forth,
You shall debar all Knights of no worth,
By lock-fast doors at noon-tide hours,
To keep it from the rascals' powers.
Therefore, I charge you that ye summon
Precentor,† base born son of woman,
To answer in the hour of cause
For open insult to our laws,
Likeas ordain him to depone
If he has lybell's, any one
Containing treasonable rhymes
Or other treasonable crimes
Which he has issued 'gainst the Shades
And all our bumper-drinking blades,
All things before said which to do
We hereby do commit to you
As all of you and every one
Shall answer to us thereupon.
*This was first printed by Dr. Grosart, in 1851, as an additional note to the poem of "Auld Reekie," from the holograph of Fergusson, furnished to him for the purpose by David Laing of the Writers to the Signet's Library. His allusion to the Cape Club in the poem named appears to have been the subject of humorous accusation against the poet. Hence, perhaps, the "Summons."
Precentor was the club-title of Fergusson.
JOB, CHAP. III., PARAPHRASED.
PERISH the fatal day when I was born,
The night with dreary darkness be forlorn;
The loathed, hateful, and lamented night
When Job, 'twas told, had first perceived the light;
Let it be dark, nor let the God on high
Regard it with the favour of his eye;
Let blackest darkness and death's awful shade
Stain it, and make the trembling earth afraid;
Be it not join'd unto the varying year,
Nor to the fleeting months in swift career.
Lo! let the night, in solitude's dismay,
Be dumb to joy, and waste in gloom away;
On it may twilight stars be never known;
Light let it wish for, Lord! but give it none.
Curse it let them who curse the passing day,
And to the voice of mourning raise the lay;
Nor ever be the face of dawning seen
To оре its lustre on the enamell'd green;
Because it seal'd not up my mother's womb,
Nor hid from me the sorrows doom'd to come.
Why, Lord! the wretched object of thine ire,
Did I not rather from the womb expire?
Why did supporting knees prevent my death,
Or suckling breasts sustain my infant breath?
For now my soul with quiet had been blest,
With kings and counsellors of earth at rest,
Who bade the house of desolation rise,
And awful ruin strike tyrannic eyes;
Or with the princes unto whom were told
Rich store of silver and corrupting gold;
Or, as untimely birth, I had not been
Like infant who the light hath never seen;
For there the wicked from their troubles cease,
And there the weary find their lasting peace;
There the poor prisoners together rest,
Nor by the hand of injury opprest;
The small and great together mingled are,
And free the servant from his master there.
Say, wherefore has an over-bounteous Heaven
Light to the comfortless and wretched given?
Why should the troubled and oppress'd in soul
Fret over restless life's unsettled bowl,
Who long for death, who lists not to their prayer,
And dig as for the treasures hid afar;
Who with excess of joy are blest and glad,
Rejoiced when in the tomb of silence laid?
Why then is grateful light bestow'd on man,
Whose life is darkness, all his days a span?
For ere the morn return'd my sighing came,
My mourning pour'd out as the mountain stream,
Wild-visaged fear, with sorrow-mingled eye,
And wan destruction, hideous, stared me nigh;
For though nor rest nor safety blest my soul,
New trouble came, new darkness, new controul.
O THOU, who with incessant gloom
Courts the recess of midnight tomb!
Admit me of thy mournful throng,
The scatter'd woods and wilds among.
If e'er thy discontented ear
The voice of sympathy can cheer,
My melancholy bosom's sigh
Shall to your mournful plaint reply;
There to the fear-foreboding owl
The angry furies hiss and howl;
Or near the mountain's pendant brow,
Where rush-clad streams in cadent murmurs flow.
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