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"There's a bit of doggerel; you would like a bit of botheral."

W

I.

HERE be you going, you Devon maid? And what have ye there in the basket? Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy, Will ye give me some cream if I ask it?

II.

I love your hills and I love your dales,
And I love your flocks a-bleating;
But oh, on the heather to lie together,
With both our hearts a-beating!

III.

I'll put your basket all safe in a nook;
Your shawl I'll hang on a willow;
And we will sigh in the daisy's eye,
And kiss on a grass-green pillow.

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The clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem,
Though beautiful, cold-strange-as in a dream,
I dreamed long ago, now new begun.
The short-lived paly Summer is but won
From Winter's ague, for one hour's gleam;
Though sapphire-warm, their stars do never beam:
All is cold Beauty; pain is never done:
For who has mind to relish, Minos-wise,
The Real of Beauty, free from that dead hue
Sickly imagination and sick pride

Cast wan upon it! Burns! with honour due

I oft have honour'd thee. Great shadow! hide

Thy face; I sin against thy native skies.

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WRITTEN IN BURNS' COTTAGE.

HIS mortal body of a thousand days

Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own

room,

Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays,
Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom!
My pulse is warm with thine own Barley-bree,
My head is light with pledging a great soul,
My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see,
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal;
Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor,
Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find
The meadow thou hast tramped o'er and o'er,-
Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind,-
Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name,-
O smile among the shades, for this is fame!

MEG MERRILIES.

LD MEG she was a gipsy,

OL

And lived upon the moors:

Her bed it was the brown heath turf,

And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries,
Her currants, pods o' broom;

Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,
Her book a church-yard tomb.

Her brothers were the craggy hills,

Her sisters larchen trees;
Alone with her great family

She lived as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn,

No dinner many a noon,

And, 'stead of supper, she would stare
Full hard against the moon.

But every morn, of woodbine fresh
She made her garlanding,

And, every night, the dark glen yew
She wove, and she would sing.
And with her fingers, old and brown,
She plaited mats of rushes,

And gave them to the cottagers
She met among the bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen,

And tall as Amazon;

An old red blanket cloak she wore,

A ship-hat had she on :

God rest her aged bones somewhere!
She died full long agone!

H

SONNET ON AILSA ROCK.

EARKEN, thou craggy ocean-pyramid, Give answer by thy voice-the seafowls' screams!

When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams?

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