Or noble Elgin beets the heavenward flame,

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;

The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,

How Abram was the friend of God on high ; Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's

avenging ire ; Or Job's pathetic plaint and wailing cry;

Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in heaven the second name,

Had not on earth whereon to lay his head : How his first followers and servants sped;

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : How he, who lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand ; And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by

Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King,

The saint, the father, and the husband prays : Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,

That thus they all shall meet in future days: There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal

sphere. VOL. II.

Compared with this, how poor religion's pride,

In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display, to congregations wide,

Devotion's every grace except the heart! The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; But haply, in some cottage far apart, (soul;

May hear, well pleased, the language of the And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enrol. Then homeward all take off their several way;

The yougling cottagers retire to rest : The parent pair their secret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest,

And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best,

For them and for their little ones provide ; But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside. From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur

springs, That makes her loved at home, revered abroad : Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,

“ An honest man's the noblest work of God:" And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road,

The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,

Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined ! Oh Scotia! my dear, my native soil !

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may the hardy sons of rustic toil (content!

Be bless'd with health, and peace, and sweet And oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent

From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,

A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.

Oh Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide [heart;

That stream'd through Wallace's undaunted Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride,

Or nobly die the second glorious part (The patriot's God peculiarly thou art,

His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!), Oh never, never Scotia's realm desert :

But still the patriot and the patriot bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard !

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou'st met me in an evil hour ;
For I maun crush amang the stoure

Thy slender stem;
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,

T'hou bonnie gem.
Alas! it's not thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!

Wi’spreckled breast,
When upward-springing, blithe to groet

The purpling east.
Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth ;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth

Amid the storm,
Scarce rear'd above the parent earth

Thy tender form.
The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield;
But thou beneath the random bield

O'clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lift'st thy unassuming head

In humble guise ;
But now the share uptears thy bed,

And low thou lies! Such is the fate of artless maid, Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade! By love's simplicity betray'd,

And guileless trust,
Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid

Low i' the dust.
Such is the fate of simple bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!
Unskilful he to note the card

Of prudent lore,
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,

And whelm him o'er!
Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driv'n

To mis’ry's brink,
Till, wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heaven,

He, ruin'd, sink !
E'en thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,

Full on thy bloom,
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight

Shall be thy doom!

TO J. s****

Some rhyme a neebor's name to lash;
Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu' cash:

Some rhyme to court the kintra clash,

An' raise a din;
For me, an aim I never fash;

I rhyme for fun.
The star that rules my luckless lot,
Has fated me the russet coat,
An' damn’d my fortune to the groat ;

But in requit,
Has bless'd me wi' a random shot

O'kintra wit.
This while my notion's ta'en a sklent,
To try my fate in guid black prent ;
But still the mair I'm that way bent,

Something cries “ Hoolie! I red you, honest man, tak tent!

Ye'll shaw your folly.
There's ither poets, much your betters,
Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters,
Hae thought they had ensured their debtors,

A' future ages ;
Now moths deform, in shapeless tetters,

Their unknown pages.”
Then fareweel hopes o' laurel-boughs,
To garland my poetic brows!
Henceforth l’íl rove where busy ploughs

Are whistling thrang,
An' teach the lanely heights an' howes

My rustic sang.
I'll wander on, with tentless heed
How never-halting moments speed,
Till Fate shall snap the brittle thread,

Then, all unknown,
I'll lay me with the inglorious dead,

Forgot and gone!
But why o' death begin a tale ?
Just now we're living sound and hale,