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 lifts 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,
The 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 driven

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

He, ruin'd, sink !
Ev’n 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 !

BRUCE TO HIS MEN AT BANNOCKBURN.
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,

Or to victorie !
Now's the day, and now's the hour,
See the front o' battle lour :
See approach proud Edward's pow'r

Chains and slaverie !
Wha will be a traitor-knave ?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave ?

Let him turn and flee!
Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa'?

Let him follow me!
By oppression's woes and pains !
By our sons in servile chains !
We will drain our dearest veins,

But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurpers low !
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty 's in every blow!-

Let us do or die!

TO A BROTHER-POET.
What though, like commoners of air,
We wander out we know not where,

But either house or hall ?
Yet Nature's charms, the hills and woods,
The sweeping vales and foaming floods,

Are free alike to all.
In days when daisies deck the ground,

And blackbirds whistle clear,
With honest joy our hearts will bound
To see the coming year:
On braes when we please, then

We'll sit and sowth? a tune;
Syne? rhyme till’t, we'll time till’t,

And sing't when we ha'e done.

It's no in titles nor in rank,
It's no in wealth, like Lon'on bank,

To purchase peace and rest :
It's no in makin' muckle mair, 3
It's no in books, it's no in lear',4

To make us truly blest :
If happiness hae not her seat

And centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest;
Nae treasures or pleasures

Could make us happy lang ;
The heart aye's the part aye

That maks us right or wrang.
* * * * *
Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce,
Nor make our scanty pleasures less

By pining at our state;
And, even should misfortunes come,
I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some,

An’s thankfu' for them yet.
They gie the wit of age to youth,

They let us ken oursel';
They make us see the naked truth,
The real guid and ill.
Though losses and crosses

Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,

Ye'll find nae other where.

OF A' THE AIRTS THE WIND CAN BLAW. Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw,

I dearly like the west,
For there the bonnie lassie lives,

The lassie I lo'e best:
There wild woods grow, and rivers row,

And mony a hill between;
But day and night my fancy's flight

Is ever wi' my Jean.
I see her in the dewy flowers,

I see her sweet and fair ;
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,

I hear her charm the air : 3 making much more.

There's not a bonnie flower that springs,

By fountain, shaw, or green ;
There's not a bonnie bird that sings,

But minds me o' my Jean.
0, blaw ye westlin' winds, blaw saft

Amang the leafy trees,
Wi' balmy gale, frae hill and dale,

Bring hame the laden bees;
And bring the lassie back to me

That's aye sae neat and clean,
Ae smile o' her wad banish care,

Sae charming is my Jean.
What sighs and vows amang the knowes

Hae passed atween us twa !
How fond to meet, how wae to part,

That night she gaed awa'!
The powers aboon can only ken,

To whom the heart is seen,
That nane can be so dear to me

As my sweet lovely Jean !

COWPER.

WILLIAM COWPER was born at his father's rectory of Berkhamp. stead A.D. 1731. He was placed at a school in Bedfordshire, where he suffered such cruelties from a schoolfellow as apparently affected his sensitive nature for the whole of his life. He had not energy for the bar, for which profession he had been intended; and though appointed “ Clerk of the Journals of the House of Lords," such was his nervousness that he was unable to encounter the public examination necessary for holding it. In 1765 he repaired to Hunting. don, where he lived as a boarder at the house of Mr. Unwin, the clergyman of the parish. He continued to reside with that family when, after Mr. Unwin's death, they had settled near Olney, where he became an intimate of the celebrated Mr. Newton, then curate of the place, with whom, in his charitable ministrations, Cowper gladly associated himself. Here he was again attacked by a malady which had before affected him, a religious melancholy amounting to aberration of intellect. For five years he lay under this eclipse, during all which time Mrs. Unwin watched over him with maternal tenderness. Getting better, he occupied himself with gardening, drawing, and the domestication of hares and birds. He began again to pay serious attention to poetry, in which it is a remarkable circumstance that he had done nothing of importance till after he was fifty years old. His first volume was received somewhat coldly by the public; but the valetudinarian had strength enough to be neither disappointed nor discouraged. In 1784 he wrote his “ Task" at the request of his cousin, Lady Hesketh; and in the same year commenced his translation of Homer. In 1792 his former malady began to return, induced apparently in some measure by his grief at the declining health of Mrs. Unwin, who languished for some years in paralysis. He died A.D. 1800; having been able the preceding year to resume his labours on Homer.

To the fostering friendship of the Unwins, Lady Hesketh, Lady Austen, and a few other friends, Cowper owed nearly all the happiness allowed to his shattered life. Yet, in his helplessness, he was able largely to affect the literature of his country, and consequently its moral and social well-being; nor is it unlikely that the beneficial influence exercised by him may be felt for centuries. More than any one else, except perhaps Burns, he contributed to bring back English poetry from convention to nature, and from French models to a renewed admiration for the great olden poets of native growth. In Burns and in Cowper the love of nature was equally marked; but in all beside there was little affinity between them. Where the former was weak, the latter was strong; and so largely do Cowper's works belong to the meditative class, that but for the moral wisdom of the poet, and the purity of his cheerless but blameless life, his poetry would have had little merit or interest. His works are a joint bequest from his genius and his virtues. In his descriptions of scenery, Cowper is always truthful; though his delineations belong to the minute, not the sublime order. His medi. tative vein is rich in the true wisdom of the heart; and, notwithstanding the aberrations by which his mind was so long clouded, it is for nothing more remarkable than its complete sanity of tone and absence of morbidness, or false enthusiasm. Perhaps Cowper's highest merit is his pathos. Of this quality beautiful specimens are left to us in his lines “ on his mother's picture," and in those addressed “ to Mary.” In the last his aged friend Mrs. Unwin, then dying, is commemorated with a pious tenderness. It may be called the love-song of old age.

A WINTER WALK.
The night was winter in his roughest mood;
The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon,
Upon the southern side of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast,
The season smiles, resigning all its rage,
And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue
Without a cloud, and white without a speck
The dazzling splendour of the scene below.