LITMIR.BIZ

      Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair,

      And with them take the Poet’s prayer;

      That fate may in her fairest page,

      With every kindliest, best presage

      Of future bliss, enrol thy name:

      With native worth and spotless fame,

      And wakeful caution still aware

      Of ill—but chief, man’s felon snare;

      All blameless joys on earth we find,

      And all the treasures of the mind—

      These be thy guardian and reward;

      So prays thy faithful friend, The Bard.

      My honoured colonel, deep I feel

      Your interest in the Poet’s weal;

      Ah! now sma’ heart hae I to speel

      The steep Parnassus,

      Surrounded thus by bolus, pill,

      And potion glasses.

      O what a canty warld were it,

      Would pain and care and sickness spare it;

      And fortune favour worth and merit,

      As they deserve!

      (And aye a rowth, roast beef and claret;

      Syne, wha wad starve?)

      Dame Life, tho’ fiction out may trick her,

      And in paste gems and frippery deck her;

      Oh! flickering, feeble, and unsicker

      I’ve found her still,

      Ay wavering like the willow-wicker,

      ’Tween good and ill.

      Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan,

      Watches, like baudrons by a rattan,

      Our sinfu’ saul to get a claut on

      Wi’ felon ire;

      Syne, whip! his tail ye’ll ne’er cast saut on—

      He’s aff like fire.

      Ah Nick! ah Nick! it is na fair,

      First shewing us the tempting ware,

      Bright wines and bonnie lasses rare,

      To put us daft;

      Syne, weave, unseen, thy spider snare

      O’ hell’s damn’d waft.

      Poor man, the flie, aft bizzes bye,

      And aft as chance he comes thee nigh,

      Thy auld danm’d elbow yeuks wi’ joy,

      And hellish pleasure;

      Already in thy fancy’s eye,

      Thy sicker treasure!

      Soon heels-o’er gowdie! in he gangs,

      And like a sheep head on a tangs,

      Thy girning laugh enjoys his pangs

      And murd’ring wrestle,

      As, dangling in the wind, he hangs

      A gibbet’s tassel.

      But lest you think I am uncivil,

      To plague you with this draunting drivel,

      Abjuring a’ intentions evil,

      I quat my pen:

      The Lord preserve us frae the devil,

      Amen! amen!

      O ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains,

      Draw near with pious rev’rence and attend!

      Here lie the loving husband’s dear remains,

      The tender father and the gen’rous friend.

      The pitying heart that felt for human woe;

      The dauntless heart that feared no human pride;

      The friend of man, to vice alone a foe;

      “For ev’n his failings lean’d to virtue’s side.”

      Know thou, O stranger to the fame

      Of this much lov’d, much honour’d name!

      (For none that knew him need be told)

      A warmer heart death ne’er made cold.

      An honest man here lies at rest

      As e’er God with his image blest!

      The friend of man, the friend of truth;

      The friend of age, and guide of youth;

      Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,

      Few heads with knowledge so inform’d:

      If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;

      If there is none, he made the best of this.

      The poor man weeps—here Gavin sleeps,

      Whom canting wretches blam’d:

      But with such as he, where’er he be,

      May I be sav’d or damn’d!