LIBERTY.

A FRAGMENT

Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among,
Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song,
To thee I turn with swimming eyes;

Where is that soul of freedom fled?

Immingled with the mighty dead!

Beneath the hallow'd turf where Wallace lies!
Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death!
Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep;
Disturb not ye the hero's sleep,

Nor give the coward secret breath.
Is this the power in freedom's war,
That wont to bid the battle rage?
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate,
Crushing the despot's proudest bearing!

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,
That Caledonian reared his martial form,
Who led the tyrant-quelling war,

Where Bannockburn's ensanguined flood
Swelled with mingling hostile blood,

Soon Edward's myriads struck with deep dismay,
And Scotia's troop of brothers win their way.

(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,
In sacred strains and tuneful numbers join'd,
Accept the gift ;-tho' humble he who gives,
Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind.

So may no ruffian-feeling in thy breast,
Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among ;
peace attune thy gentle soul to rest,
Or love ecstatic wake his seraph song.

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,
And cruelty directs the thickening blows;
Upon a time, Sir Abece the great,
In all his pedagogic powers elate,

His awful chair of state resolves to mount,
And call the trembling vowels to account.-

First enter'd A, a grave, broad, solemn wight,
But, ah! deform'd, dishonest to the sight!
His twisted head look'd backward on his way,
And flagrant from the scourge he grunted, ai!

Reluctant, E stalk'd in; with piteous race
The justling tears ran down his honest face!
That name, that well-worn name, and all his own,

Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne!

The Pedant stifles keen the Roman sound
Not all his mongrel diphthongs can compound;
And next the title following close behind,
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assign'd.

The cobweb'd gothic dome resounded, Y!
In sullen vengeance, I, disdain'd reply:
The pedant swung his felon cudgel round,
And knock'd the groaning vowel to the ground!

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;
So grim, deform'd, with horrors entering U,
His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew!

As trembling U stood staring all aghast,
The pedant in his left hand clutch'd him fast,
In helpless infants' tears he dipp'd his right,
Baptiz'd him eu, and kick'd him from his sight.

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