Grown tired of mourning for my sins,
And brooding over merits,
The other night with aching heart
I went amongst the spirits;
And I met one that I knew well:
“O Scotty’s Ghost! is that you?
And did you see the fearsome crowd
At Bobbie Burns’s statue?

“They hurried up in hansom cabs,
Tall-hatted and frock-coated;
They trained it in from all the towns,
The weird and hairy-throated;
They spoke in some outlandish tongue,
They cut some comic capers,
And ilka man was wild to get
His name in all the papers.

“They showed no sign of intellect,
Those frauds who rushed before us;
They knew one verse of ‘Auld Lang Syne’,
The first one and the chorus.
They clacked the clack o’ Scotlan’’s Bard,
They glibly talked of ‘Rabby’;
But what...

The beauty of this rainy day,
All silver-green and dripping gray,
Has stolen quite my heart away
From all the tasks I meant to do,
Made me forget the resolute blue
And energetic gold of things . . .
So soft a song the rain-bird sings.

Yet am I glad to miss awhile
The sun's huge domineering smile,
The busy spaces mile on mile,
Shut in behind this shimmering screen
Of falling pearls and phantom green;
As in a cloister walled with rain,
Safe from intrusions, voices vain,
And hurry of invading feet,
Inviolate in my retreat:
Myself, my books, my pipe, my fire -
So runs my rainy-day desire.

Or I old letters may con o'er,
And dream on faces seen no more,
The buried treasure of the years,
Too visionary now for tears;
Open old ...

She is not fair, as some are fair,
Cold as the snow, as sunshine gay:
On her clear brow, come grief what may,
She suffers not too stern an air;
But, grave in silence, sweet in speech,
Loves neither mockery nor disdain;
Gentle to all, to all doth teach
The charm of deeming nothing vain.

She join'd me: and we wander'd on;
And I rejoiced, I cared not why,
Deeming it immortality
To walk with such a soul alone.
Primroses pale grew all around,
Violets, and moss, and ivy wild;
Yet, drinking sweetness from the ground,
I was but conscious that she smiled.

The wind blew all her shining hair
From her sweet brows; and she, the while,
Put back her lovely head, to smile
On my enchanted spirit there.
Jonquils and pansies round her head
Gl...

If trees were tall and grasses short,
As in some crazy tale,
If here and there a sea were blue
Beyond the breaking pale,

If a fixed fire hung in the air
To warm me one day through,
If deep green hair grew on great hills,
I know what I should do.

In dark I lie: dreaming that there
Are great eyes cold or kind,
And twisted streets and silent doors,
And living men behind.

Let storm-clouds come: better an hour,
And leave to weep and fight,
Than all the ages I have ruled
The empires of the night.

I think that if they gave me leave
Within that world to stand,
I would be good through all the day
I spent in fairyland.

They should not hear a word from me
Of selfishness or scorn,
If only I could find the door,

Stilton, thou shouldst be living at this hour
And so thou art. Nor losest grace thereby;
England has need of thee, and so have I--
She is a Fen. Far as the eye can scour,
League after grassy league from Lincoln tower
To Stilton in the fields, she is a Fen.
Yet this high cheese, by choice of fenland men,
Like a tall green volcano rose in power.


Plain living and long drinking are no more,
And pure religion reading 'Household Words',
And sturdy manhood sitting still all day
Shrink, like this cheese that crumbles to its core;
While my digestion, like the House of Lords,
The heaviest burdens on herself doth lay.

To A. J. H.
    



Time and the Earth -
The old Father and Mother -
Their teeming accomplished,
Their purpose fulfilled,
Close with a smile
For a moment of kindness,
Ere for the winter
They settle to sleep.

Failing yet gracious,
Slow pacing, soon homing,
A patriarch that strolls
Through the tents of his children,
The Sun, as he journeys
His round on the lower
Ascents of the blue,
Washes the roofs
And the hillsides with clarity;
Charms the dark pools
Till they break into pictures;
Scatters magnificent
Alms to the beggar trees;
Touches the mist-folk,
That crowd to his escort,
Into translucencies
Radiant and ravishing:
As with the visible
Spirit of Summer
Gloriously vaporised,<...

Dear brother, would you know the life,
Please God, that I would lead?
On the first wheels that quit this weary town
Over yon western bridges I would ride
And with a cheerful benison forsake
Each street and spire and roof, incontinent.
Then would I seek where God might guide my steps,
Deep in a woodland tract, a sunny farm,
Amid the mountain counties, Hants, Franklin, Berks,
Where down the rock ravine a river roars,
Even from a brook, and where old woods
Not tamed and cleared cumber the ground
With their centennial wrecks.
Find me a slope where I can feel the sun
And mark the rising of the early stars.
There will I bring my books,--my household gods,
The reliquaries of my dead saint, and dwell
In the sweet odor of her memory.
Then in the uncouth solit...

The pigeons, following the faint warm light,
Stayed at last on the roof till warmth was gone,
Then in the mist that's hastier than night
Disappeared all behind the carved dark stone,
Huddling from the black cruelty of the frost.
With the new sparkling sun they swooped and came
Like a cloud between the sun and street, and then
Like a cloud blown from the blue north were lost,
Vanishing and returning ever again,
Small cloud following cloud across the flame
That clear and meagre burned and burned away
And left the ice unmelting day by day.

... Nor could the sun through the roof's purple slate
(Though his gold magic played with shadow there
And drew the pigeons from the streaming air)
With any fiery magic penetrate.
Under the roof the air and water froze,

When at each door the ruffian winds
Have laid a dying man to groan,
And filled the air on winter nights
With cries of infants left alone;
And every thing that has a bed
Will sigh for others that have none:

On such a night, when bitter cold,
Young Beauty, full of love thoughts sweet,
Can redden in her looking-glass;
With but one gown on, in bare feet,
She from her own reflected charms
Can feel the joy of summer's heat.

I have been across the bridges of the years.
    Wet with tears
Were the ties on which I trod, going back
    Down the track
To the valley where I left, 'neath skies of Truth,
    My lost youth.

As I went, I dropped my burdens, one and all -
    Let them fall;
All my sorrows, all my wrinkles, all my care,
    My white hair,
I laid down, like some lone pilgrim's heavy pack,
    By the track.

As I neared the happy valley with light feet,
    My heart beat
To the rhythm of a song I used to know
    Long ago,
And my spirits gushed and bubbled like a fountain
    Down a mountain.

On the border of that valley I found you,
    Tried and true;
And we wandered through the golden Summer-Land
    Hand in hand.
And my pulses...

    You're welcome, Willie Stewart,
    You're welcome, Willie Stewart;
    There's ne'er a flower that blooms in May,
    That's half sae welcome's thou art.

    Come bumpers high, express your joy,
        The bowl we maun renew it;
    The tappit-hen, gae bring her ben,
        To welcome Willie Stewart.

    My foes be strang, and friends be slack,
        Ilk action may he rue it,
    May woman on him turn her back,
        That wrongs thee, Willie Stewart.

Down the steep west unrolled,
    I watch the river of the sunset flow,
With all its crimson lights, and gleaming gold,
    Into the dusk below.

And even as I gaze,
    The soft lights fade,-the pageant gay is o'er,
And all is grey and dark, like those lost days,
    The days that are no more.

No more through whispering pines,
    I shall behold, in the else silent even,
The first faint star-watch set along the lines
    Of the white tents of heaven.

Before the earliest buds
    Have softly opened, heralding the May
With tender light illuming the gray woods,
    I shall be gone away.

Ah! wood-walks winding sweet
    Through all the valleys sloping to the west,
Where glad brooks wander with melodious feet,
    In musical u...

I give to you these verses, that if in
Some future time my name lands happily
To bring brief pleasure to humanity,
The craft supported by a great north wind,

Your memory, like tales from ancient times,
Will bore the reader like a dulcimer,
And by a strange fraternal chain live here
As if suspended in my lofty rhymes.

From deepest pit into the highest sky
Damned being, only I can bear you now.
0 shadow, barely present to the eye,

You lightly step, with a serene regard
On mortal fools who've judged you mean and hard
Angel with eyes of jet, great burnished brow!

Tune - "Robin Adair."


I.

    Had I a cave on some wild, distant shore,
        Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar;
            There would I weep my woes,
                There seek my lost repose,
                    Till grief my eyes should close,
    Ne'er to wake more.

II.

    Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare,
        All thy fond plighted vows, fleeting as air!
            To thy new lover hie,
                Laugh o'er thy perjury,
                    Then in thy bosom try
    What peace is there!

I.

    Whan I sleep I dream,
        Whan I wauk I'm eerie,
    Sleep I canna get,
        For thinkin' o' my dearie.

II.

    Lanely night comes on,
        A' the house are sleeping,
    I think on the bonnie lad
        That has my heart a keeping.
            Ay waukin O, waukin ay and wearie,
                Sleep I canna get, for thinkin' o' my dearie.

III.

    Lanely nights come on,
        A' the house are sleeping,
    I think on my bonnie lad,
        An' I blear my een wi' greetin'!
            Ay waukin, &c.

The following ode was read by the author at the Centennial Anniversary of Burns in the year 1859.


        This night shall never be forgot
            For humble life none now despise,
        Since Burns was born in lowly cot
            Whose muses wing soars to the skies.

        'Round Scotia's brow he wove a wreath
            And raised her name in classic story
        A deathless fame he did bequeath,
            His country's pride, his country's glory.

        He sang her hills, he sang her dales,
            Of Bonnie Doon and Banks of Ayr,
        Of death and Hornbook and such tales
            As Tam O'Shanter and his mare.

        He bravely taught that manly worth
            More precious is than finest gold,
        H...

Tune - "Rinn Meudial mo Mhealladh."


I.

    As I was a-wand'ring ae midsummer e'enin',
        The pipers and youngsters were making their game;
    Amang them I spied my faithless fause lover,
        Which bled a' the wound o' my dolour again.
    Weel, since he has left me, may pleasure gae wi' him;
        I may be distress'd, but I winna complain;
    I flatter my fancy I may get anither,
        My heart it shall never be broken for ane.

II.

    I could na get sleeping till dawin for greetin',
        The tears trickled down like the hail and the rain:
    Had I na got greetin', my heart wad a broken,
        For, oh! luve forsaken's a tormenting pain.

III.

    Although he has left me for greed o' the sille...

While joy gave clouds the light of stars,
    That beamed where'er they looked;
And calves and lambs had tottering knees,
    Excited, while they sucked;
While every bird enjoyed his song,
Without one thought of harm or wrong,
I turned my head and saw the wind,
    Not far from where I stood,
Dragging the corn by her golden hair,
    Into a dark and lonely wood.