LIBERTY. A FRAGMENT Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among, Where is that soul of freedom fled? Immingled with the mighty dead! Beneath the hallow'd turf where Wallace lies! Nor give the coward secret breath. This was the commencement of a poem intended to commemorate the liberty which America had achieved for herself under Washington and Franklin. Fragmentary strains were numerous among the Poet's papers: "The following lines," says Cromek, "were found on looking over his library, written with a pencil on a blank leaf prefixed to an edition of Collins' Poems. The first part of the subject is wholly defaced, and the Poet does not seem to have written more than is here given. It is evidently a fragment of the drama of BRUCE, suggested by Lord Buchan, on the model of the "Masque of Alfred." This had ever been a favourite theme of Burns' muse, and he had transmitted to his lordship the epic song of "Bruce to his troops at Bannockburn," as earnest of his having commenced the undertaking. From so noble a specimen what might not have been expected! especially when we reflect that the subject is not only in itself a grand one, but perfectly in unison with the Poet's character and feelings : * His royal visage seamed with many a scar, Where Bannockburn's ensanguined flood Soon Edward's myriads struck with deep dismay, (O, glorious deed to bay a tyrant's band! O, heavenly joy to free our native land!) While high their mighty chief poured on the doubling storm." These lines are descriptive rather than dramatic: they could not possibly belong to the drama which Burns told Ramsay he intended to write, on Rob Macquechan's thrusting his awl three inches up Robert Bruce's heel, when he undertook to repair his boot. VERSES TO A YOUNG LADY. HERE, where the Scottish muse immortal lives, So may no ruffian-feeling in thy breast, But Or pity's notes in luxury of tears, As modest want the tale of woe reveals; While conscious virtue all the strain endears, And heaven-born piety her sanction seals. a The Poet wrote these verses on the blank side of the title page of a copy of Thomson's Select Scottish Songs, and sent the volume in a present to the daughter of “ much honoured and much valued friend, Mr. Graham of Fintray." "It were to have been wished,” says Currie, "that instead of ruffian feeling,' the bard had used a less rugged epithet-e. g. ruder.” THE VOWELS. A TALE. 'TWAS where the birch and sounding thong are ply'd, The noisy domicile of pedant pride; Where ignorance her darkening vapour throws, His awful chair of state resolves to mount, First enter'd A, a grave, broad, solemn wight, Reluctant, E stalk'd in; with piteous race Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne! The Pedant stifles keen the Roman sound The cobweb'd gothic dome resounded, Y! In rueful apprehension enter'd O, The wailing minstrel of despairing woe; Th' Inquisitor of Spain the most expert, Might there have learnt new mysteries of his art; As trembling U stood staring all aghast, The kindness of Mr. Laidlaw, Depute Sheriff-Clerk of Berwickshire, has enabled me to add a characteristic note to this odd poem. The following, described by Burns as "Literary Scolding and Hints," forms part of a letter sent to a critic who had taken him to task about obscure language and imperfect grammar : "Thou eunuch of language: thou Englishman, who never was south the Tweed: thou servile echo of fashionable barbarisms: thou quack, vending the nostrums of empirical elocution: thou marriage-maker between vowels and consonants, on the Gretna-green of caprice : thou cobbler, botching the flimsy socks of bombast oratory: thou blacksmith, hammering the rivets of ab |