And cut the cards-whose dirty leaves
First told he was beset with thieves;
Who knows not that ;-'tis my belief
The world is just one giant thief:
And could with ample demonstration
Substantiate the observation.
Next, Fortune's favours came along
So quick, so heavy, and so throng,
They trode each other's heels, and cried,
Come, devil take you, stand aside!".
Things that are like to come to pass
When o'er the planets grows the grass;
Or, drunk with tippling over night,
The sun forgets the world to light;
"But time would fail to tell of all,"
As saith my friend the apostle Paul.
By this the brewer 'gan to think
Sans hops and malt was Jenny's drink
He proffered not the powerful pelf,
When Jenny looked her horrid self;
With withering glance the group surveyed,
Rose, tossed the glass-her exit made!
But now the glorious things with which
The smith's futurity was rich,
Produced by Jenny's magic slight,
In all their galaxy of light,
As wax the man of iron made-
He home was on a cart conveyed.
O muse! ye jingling jilt, fie shame,
Tell truth for once- "the smith was lame."
That stately youth, with giant force,
That there restrains the fiery horse;
First at the sports of summer's e'en,
That shake the sod of village green;
And round the glowing winter hearth,
The lifestring of the rustic mirth;
Nor will the precedency yield
To one in labours of the field.
His fair was coy, as fair will prove Sometimes, when deepest drowned in love; Beneath th' eclipse he sought for guide The wily witch of Irvine side.
And mark that venerable man,
Conspicuous ever in the van
Of those that seek the house of
And long an office-bearer there—
His goods were stolen. With truth 'tis said, He sought notorious Jenny's aid,
And rushed against the threefold fence,
Of Scripture, Reason, Common-sense.
Irvine, the Virtues long have made
Their bowers within thy sheltering shade!
What! sermonising? lift thine eye
And scan that fair one passing by,
In all the pageantry and power
Of youth and beauty's noontide hour.
Yes, Art and Nature both have played
Their freaks to form the matchless maid;
Even on that high brow's beauteous swell
The amorous sunbeam loves to dwell;
Or, through the silken shade will peep,
Like lover o'er his idol's sleep:
Those bright blue eyes might be the theme
For life of minstrel's raptured dream,
New charms disclosing day by day,
As fled the swift sweet hours away.
That swimming majesty of tread,
That air, that symmetry, might wed
The misanthrope to ways of men,
The hermit to the world again;
Yea, and beneath that hand of snow,
The bright designs will sometimes glow ;
She sings, 'tis as if angel gave
To earth the music of a wave
Of harmony, from that great sea—
Companion of eternity.
Yet this accomplished, peerless queen,
Hath also with the beldam been.
O man! of all things here we see Thou art the greatest mystery; Thou chaos in contention dipt, Thou heterogeneous nondescript ; God's word and Nature's law aside Are set, as inclinations guide; And spite of every high pretence, The child art thou of circumstance.
Ye who profess the creed sublime,
That man shall, at some future time,
Divest him of his native will
To shun the good and seek the ill,
And, by his own intrinsic aid
Arise, in moral light arrayed;
Turn, in your intellectual pride,
Survey the witch of Irvine side!
MEDITATIONS AND REFLECTIONS.
HIGH on a rock of Mona's rugged coast,
Like mateless seabird, let me sit a while,
Watching the ranks of ocean's snowy host,
And list their music in the dark defile,
As the young morning lends her sweetest smile
To gild those precipices, dark and dun;
Like Friendship on this world of selfish guile,
Or filial love, that in some beauteous one
Illumes the fevered couch, when sands of life are run.
Thus, were they cast upon creation's morn,
With horrid grandeur hanging on each brow?
Or, by the vengeance of the earthquake torn
Or, by the deluge left as they are now;
Or, has the thunder taught their heads to bow?
A deep voice seems to answer solemnly-
"Frail mortal, dwell not on the why, or how, "Behold all fair, and filled with good to thee, "And all that lives and moves, in earth, in air, and sea."
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