The Complete Works - Robert Burns

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on his head an hour has been;

      The mother may forget the child

      That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;

      But I’ll remember thee, Glencairn,

      And a’ that thou hast done for me!”

      CXXV. LINES SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD, BART., OF WHITEFOORD. WITH THE FOREGOING POEM

      [Sir John Whitefoord, a name of old standing in Ayrshire, inherited the love of his family for literature, and interested himself early in the fame and fortunes of Burns.]

      Thou, who thy honour as thy God rever’st,

      Who, save thy mind’s reproach, nought earthly fear’st,

      To thee this votive offering I impart,

      The tearful tribute of a broken heart.

      The friend thou valuedst, I, the patron, lov’d;

      His worth, his honour, all the world approv’d,

      We’ll mourn till we too go as he has gone,

      And tread the dreary path to that dark world unknown.

      CXXVI. ADDRESS TO THE SHADE OF THOMSON, ON CROWNING HIS BUST AT EDNAM WITH BAYS

      [“Lord Buchan has the pleasure to invite Mr. Burns to make one at the coronation of the bust of Thomson, on Ednam Hill, on the 22d of September: for which day perhaps his muse may inspire an ode suited to the occasion. Suppose Mr. Burns should, leaving the Nith, go across the country, and meet the Tweed at the nearest point from his farm, and, wandering along the pastoral banks of Thomson’s pure parent stream, catch inspiration in the devious walk, till he finds Lord Buchan sitting on the ruins of Dryburgh. There the Commendator will give him a hearty welcome, and try to light his lamp at the pure flame of native genius, upon the altar of Caledonian virtue.” Such was the invitation of the Earl of Buchan to Burns. To request the poet to lay down his sickle when his harvest was half reaped, and traverse one of the wildest and most untrodden ways in Scotland, for the purpose of looking at the fantastic coronation of the bad bust of on excellent poet, was worthy of Lord Buchan. The poor bard made answer, that a week’s absence in the middle of his harvest was a step he durst not venture upon—but he sent this Poem.

      The poet’s manuscript affords the following interesting variations:—

      “While cold-eyed Spring, a virgin coy,

      Unfolds her verdant mantle sweet,

      Or pranks the sod in frolic joy,

      A carpet for her youthful feet:

      “While Summer, with a matron’s grace,

      Walks stately in the cooling shade,

      And oft delighted loves to trace

      The progress of the spiky blade:

      “While Autumn, benefactor kind,

      With age’s hoary honours clad,

      Surveys, with self-approving mind,

      Each creature on his bounty fed.”]

      While virgin Spring, by Eden’s flood,

      Unfolds her tender mantle green,

      Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,

      Or tunes Æolian strains between:

      While Summer, with a matron grace,

      Retreats to Dryburgh’s cooling shade,

      Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace

      The progress of the spiky blade:

      While Autumn, benefactor kind,

      By Tweed erects his aged head,

      And sees, with self-approving mind,

      Each creature on his bounty fed:

      While maniac Winter rages o’er

      The hills whence classic Yarrow flows,

      Rousing the turbid torrent’s roar,

      Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows:

      So long, sweet Poet of the year!

      Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won;

      While Scotia, with exulting tear,

      Proclaims that Thomson was her son.

      CXXVII. TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ., OF FINTRAY

      [By this Poem Burns prepared the way for his humble request to be removed to a district more moderate in its bounds than one which extended over ten country parishes, and exposed him both to fatigue and expense. This wish was expressed in prose, and was in due time attended to, for Fintray was a gentleman at once kind and considerate.]

      Late crippl’d of an arm, and now a leg,

      About to beg a pass for leave to beg:

      Dull, listless, teas’d, 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 curse the light he first survey’d,

      And doubly curse 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’ envenom’d 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 secure;

      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 op’ning dun;

      No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun;

      No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn,

      And those, alas! not Amalthea’s horn:

      No nerves olfact’ry, Mammon’s trusty cur,

      Clad in rich dullness’ 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!—appall’d I venture on the name,

      Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.

      Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes!

      He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose.

      His heart by causeless wanton malice wrung,

      By blockheads’ daring into madness stung;

      His well-won bays, than life itself more dear,

      By miscreants torn, who ne’er one sprig must wear:

      Foil’d, bleeding,

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