Part 39

“While ye are pleas’d to keep me hale, I’ll sit down o’er my scanty meal, Be’t water-brose or muslin-kail, Wi’ cheerfu’ face, As lang’s the Muses dinna fail To say the grace.”

An anxious e’e I never throws Behint my lug, or by my nose; I jouk beneath Misfortune’s blows As weel’s I may; Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose, I rhyme away.

O ye douce folk that live by rule, Grave, tideless-blooded, calm an’cool, Compar’d wi’ you—O fool! fool! fool! How much unlike! Your hearts are just a standing pool, Your lives, a dyke!

Nae hair-brain’d, sentimental traces In your unletter’d, nameless faces! In arioso trills and graces Ye never stray; But gravissimo, solemn basses Ye hum away.

Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye’re wise; Nae ferly tho’ ye do despise The hairum-scairum, ram-stam boys, The rattling squad: I see ye upward cast your eyes— Ye ken the road!

Whilst I—but I shall haud me there, Wi’ you I’ll scarce gang ony where— Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair, But quat my sang, Content wi’ you to mak a pair. Whare’er I gang.

The Vision

Duan First^1

The sun had clos’d the winter day, The curless quat their roarin play, And hunger’d maukin taen her way, To kail-yards green, While faithless snaws ilk step betray Whare she has been.

The thresher’s weary flingin-tree, The lee-lang day had tired me; And when the day had clos’d his e’e, Far i’ the west, Ben i’ the spence, right pensivelie, I gaed to rest.

There, lanely by the ingle-cheek, I sat and ey’d the spewing reek, That fill’d, wi’ hoast-provoking smeek, The auld clay biggin; An’ heard the restless rattons squeak About the riggin.

All in this mottie, misty clime, I backward mus’d on wasted time, How I had spent my youthfu’ prime, An’ done nae thing, But stringing blethers up in rhyme, For fools to sing.

Had I to guid advice but harkit, I might, by this, hae led a market, Or strutted in a bank and clarkit My cash-account; While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit. Is a’ th’ amount.

I started, mutt’ring, “blockhead! coof!” And heav’d on high my waukit loof, To swear by a’ yon starry roof, Or some rash aith, That I henceforth wad be rhyme-proof Till my last breath—

When click! the string the snick did draw; An’ jee! the door gaed to the wa’; An’ by my ingle-lowe I saw, Now bleezin bright, A tight, outlandish hizzie, braw, Come full in sight.

Ye need na doubt, I held my whisht; The infant aith, half-form’d, was crusht I glowr’d as eerie’s I’d been dusht In some wild glen; When sweet, like honest Worth, she blusht, An’ stepped ben.

Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs Were twisted, gracefu’, round her brows; I took her for some Scottish Muse, By that same token; And come to stop those reckless vows, Would soon been broken.

A “hair-brain’d, sentimental trace” Was strongly marked in her face; A wildly-witty, rustic grace Shone full upon her; Her eye, ev’n turn’d on empty space, Beam’d keen with honour.

Down flow’d her robe, a tartan sheen, Till half a leg was scrimply seen; An’ such a leg! my bonie Jean Could only peer it; Sae straught, sae taper, tight an’ clean— Nane else came near it.

Her mantle large, of greenish hue, My gazing wonder chiefly drew: Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw A lustre grand; And seem’d, to my astonish’d view, A well-known land.

Here, rivers in the sea were lost; There, mountains to the skies were toss’t: Here, tumbling billows mark’d the coast, With surging foam; There, distant shone Art’s lofty boast, The lordly dome.

Here, Doon pour’d down his far-fetch’d floods; There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds: Auld hermit Ayr staw thro’ his woods, On to the shore; And many a lesser torrent scuds, With seeming roar.

Low, in a sandy valley spread, An ancient borough rear’d her head; Still, as in Scottish story read, She boasts a race To ev’ry nobler virtue bred, And polish’d grace.^2

By stately tow’r, or palace fair, Or ruins pendent in the air, Bold stems of heroes, here and there, I could discern; Some seem’d to muse, some seem’d to dare, With feature stern.

My heart did glowing transport feel, To see a race heroic^3 wheel,

And brandish round the deep-dyed steel, In sturdy blows; While, back-recoiling, seem’d to reel Their Suthron foes.

His Country’s Saviour,^4 mark him well! Bold Richardton’s heroic swell;^5 The chief, on Sark who glorious fell,^6 In high command; And he whom ruthless fates expel His native land.

There, where a sceptr’d Pictish shade Stalk’d round his ashes lowly laid,^7 I mark’d a martial race, pourtray’d In colours strong: Bold, soldier-featur’d, undismay’d, They strode along.