I trust, meantime, my boon in thy gift:
That, placed by thee upon the wished-for height,
Where, man and nature fairer in her sight,
My Muse may imp her wing for some sublime flight.
SECOND EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY
FINTRY, my stay in worldly strife,
Friend o my Muse, friend o' my life,
Are ye as idle's I am?
Come then, wi' uncouth, kintra flɛg,
O'er Pegasus I'll fling my leg,
And ye shall see me try him.
I'll sing the zeal Drumlanrig bears,
Who left the all-important cares
Of princes and their darlings;
And, bent on winning borough towns,
Came shaking hands wi' wabster loons,
And kissing barefit carlins.
Combustion through our boroughs rode,
Whistling his roaring pack abroad,
Of mad, unmuzzled lions;
As Queensberry buff and blue unfurled,
And Westerha' and Hopetoun hurled
To every Whig defiance.
But Queensberry, cautious, left the war,
The unmannered dust might soil his star,
Besides, he hated bleeding;
But left behind him heroes bright,
Heroes in Cæsarean fight
Or Ciceronian pleading.
O for a throat like huge Mons-Meg,
To muster o'er each ardent Whig
Beneath Drumlanrig's banner;
Heroes and heroines commix
All in the field of politics,
To win immortal honours.
M'Murdo and his lovely spouse
(Th' enamoured laurels kiss her brows)
Led on the Loves and Graces;
She won each gaping burgess' heart,
While he, all-conquering, played his part.
Among their wives and lasses.
Craigdarroch led a light-armed corps;
Tropes, metaphors, and figures pour,
Like Hecla streaming thunder:
Glenriddel, skilled in rusty coins,
Blew up each Tory's dark designs,
And bared the treason under.
In either wing two champions fought,
Redoubted Staig, who set at nought
The wildest savage Tory,
And Welsh, who ne'er yet flinched his ground,
High waved his magnum bonum round
With Cyclopean fury.
Miller brought up the artillery ranks,
The many-pounders of the Banks,
Resistless desolation;
While Maxwelton, that baron bold,
Mid Lawson's port entrenched his hold,
THREATENING EXTERMINATION.
To these, what Tory hosts opposed:
With these, what Tory warriors closed,
Surpasses my descriving:
Squadrons extended long and large,
With furious speed rushed to the charge,
Like raging MONSTERS driving.
What verse can sing, what prose narrate,
The butcher deeds of bloody fate
Amid this mighty tulzie?
Grim Horror grinned; pale Terror roared,
As Murther at his thrapple shored,
And WILD mixed in the brulzie !
As Highland crags, by thunder cleft,
When lightnings fire the stormy lift,
Hurl down wi' crashing rattle;
As flames amang a hundred woods
As headlong foam a hundred floods;
Such is the rage of battle.
The stubborn Torios dare to die;
As soon the rooted oaks would fly,
Before th' approaching fellers;
The Whigs come on like Ocean's roar,
When all his wintry billows pour
Against the Buchan Bullers.
Lo, from the shades of Death's deep night,
Departed Whigs enjoy the fight,
And think on former daring!
The muffled murtherer of Charles
The Magna-Charta flag unfurls,
All deadly gules its bearing.
Nor wanting ghosts of Tory fame;
Bold Scrimgeour follows gallant Grahame-
Auld Covenanters shiver-
(Forgive, forgive, much-wronged Montrose!
While death AT LAST engulfs thy foe
Thou liv'st on high for ever!)
Still o'er the field the combat burns:
The Tories, Whigs, give way by turns:
But fate the word has spoken--
For woman's wit, or strength of man,
Alas! can do but what they can-
The Tory ranks are broken.
O that my een were flowing burns!
My voice a lioness that mourns
Her darling cub's undoing!
That I might greet, that I might cry,
While Tories fall, while Tories fly,
And furious Whigs pursuing!
What Whig but wails the good Sir James:
Dear to his country by the names
Friend, Patron, Benefactor?
Not Pulteney's wealth can Pulteney save!
And Hopetoun falls, the generous, brave!
And Stuart bold as Hector!
Thou, Pitt, shall rue this overthrow,
And Thurlow growl a curse of wo,
And Melville melt in wailing!
Now Fox and Sheridan, rejoice!
And Burke shall sing: "O prince, arise
Thy power is all-prevailing!"
For your poor friend, the Bard afar,
He hears, and only hears the war,
A cool spectator purely;
So when the storm the forest rends,
The robin in the hedge descends,
And sober chirps securely.
THIRD EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY, 1791
LATE crippled of an arm, and now a leg,
About to beg a pass for leave to beg:
Dull, listless, teased, dejected, and deprest,
(Nature is adverse to a cripple's rest);
Will generous Graham list to his Poet's wail?
(It soothes poor misery, hearkening to her tale),
And hear him BAN the light he first surveyed,
And doubly BAN the luckless rhyming trade?
Thou, Nature, partial Nature! I arraign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain.
The lion and the bull thy care have found,
One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground
Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell,
Th' envenomed wasp, victorious, guards his cell;
Thy minions, kings, defend, control, devour,
In all th' omnipotence of rule and power;
Foxes and statesmen, subtile wiles insure:
The cit and polecat stink, and are securo:
Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgehog in their robes are snug;
Ev'n silly woman has her warlike arts,
Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and darts;-
But, oh thou bitter stepmother and hard,
To thy poor, fenceless, naked child-the Bard!
A thing unteachable in world's skill,
And half an idiot, too, more helpless still :
No heels to bear him from the opening dun;
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun;
No nerves olfactory, Mammon's trusty cur,
Clad in rich dulness' comfortable fur;—
In naked feeling, and in aching pride,
He bears the unbroken blast from every side:
Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart,
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.
Critics appalled I venture on the name,
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame:
Bloody dissectors, worse that ten Monroes!
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose.
His heart by causeless wanton malice wrung,
By blockheads' daring into madness stung;
Ilis well-won bays, than life itself more dear,
By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear:
Foiled, bleeding, tortured, in the unequal strife,
The hapless poet flounders on through life;
Till fled each hope that once his bosom fired,
And fled each muse that glorious once inspired,
Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age,
Dead, even resentment, for his injured page,
He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's rage!
So, by some hedge, the generous steed deceased,
For half-starved snarling curs a dainty feast:
By toil and famine wore to skin and bone,
Lies senseless, AND THEIR RAVENING UNKNOWN.
O dulness! portion of the truly blest!
Calm sheltered haven of eternal rest!
Thy sons ne'er madden in the fierce extremes
Of fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams.
If mantling high she fills the golden cup,
With sober selfish ease they sip it up:
Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve,
They only wonder "some folks" do not starve.
The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog,
And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog.
When disappointment snaps the clue of hope,
And through disastrous night they darkling grope,
With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear,
And just conclude that "fools are fortune's care.”
So, heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks,
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox.
Not so the idle Muses' mad-cap train,
Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain.
I dread thee, fate, relentless and severe,
With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear!
Already one strong hold of hope is lost,
Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust;
(Fled, like the sun eclipsed as noon appears,
And left us darkling in a world of tears :)
O hear my ardent, grateful, selfish prayer!-
Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare!
Through a long life his hopes and wishes crown
And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down!
May bliss domestic smooth his private path,
Give energy to life, and soothe his latest breath,
With many a filial tear circling the bed of death!
FOR THE DEATH OF MRS FERGUSSON OF CRAIGDARROCH'S SON -AN UNCOMMONLY PROMISING YOUTH OF EIGHTEEN OR NINETEEN YEARS OF AGE.
FATE gave the word, the arrow sped,
And pierc'd my darling's heart;
And with him all the joys are fled
Life can to me impart.
By cruel hands the sapling drops,
In dust dishonour'd laid:
So fell the pride of all my hopes,
My age's future shade.
The mother linnet in the brake
Bewails her ravish'd young;
So I, for my lost darling's sake,
Lament the live-day long.
Death! oft I've feared thy fatal blow,
Now, fond I bare my breast;
Oh, do thou kindly lay me low
With him I love, at rest!
LINES WRITTEN IN FRIARS' CARSE HERMITAGE,
THOU whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deckt in silken stole,
Grave these counsels on thy soul.
Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night, in darkness lost,
Hope not sunshine every hour,
Fear not clouds will always lower.
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