WRITTEN IN FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE, ON THE BANKS OF NITH. [FIRST COPY.] THOU whom chance may hither lead, Be thou clad in russet weed, Be thou deckt in silken stole, Grave these maxims on thy soul. Life is but a day at most, Sprung from night, in darkness lost; Day, how rapid in its flight— Day, how few must see the night; Fame a restless idle dream: Pleasures, insects on the wing Round Peace, the tenderest flower of Spring; Those that sip the dew alone, Make the butterflies thy own; Those that would the bloom devour, Crush the locusts-save the flower. For the future be prepar'd, Guard wherever thou can'st guard; Welcome what thou can'st not shun. Follies past, give thou to air, Make their consequence thy care : Him whose wondrous work thou art; Thy trust-and thy example, too. Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide! The kindness of my friend Mrs. Hyslop has enabled me to give, from the interleaved volume which belonged to Dr. Geddes, the original rough draught of this poem. It is seldom, indeed, that Burns bestowed so much labour on his compositions: he thought so well, however, of this, that he preserved the variations, as eminent painters preserve the first and second thoughts of their best pictures. It appears that he wrote the first version in June, 1788: the amended and enlarged copy follows, in the manuscript, with this heading-" Altered from the foregoing, December, 1788." Some of the changes are curious, and will be felt by the reader: in the improved version I find the lines "Wast thou cottager or king? Peer or peasant?-no such thing!" These and other lines are not in the edition published by Currie or Gilbert Burns. Had the poem been in his native dialect, it would have come full and finished from his fancy; his sentiments, when he wrote in the Scottish language, put on at once their proper costume of words, and he had few changes to make. He wrote English with the fear of the critics before him. So highly did the Poet think of this poem, that he wrote out many copies and forwarded them to his friends -a number of these are still in existence. He looked upon it as an attempt to rise out of rustic Scotch into classic English: the gentle praise bestowed showed him what was felt-that he had not equalled the happiness of expression in some of his earlier pieces. WRITTEN IN FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE, ON NITHSIDE. [SECOND COPY.] THOU whom chance may hither lead, Be thou clad in russet weed, Be thou deckt in silken stole, Grave these counsels on thy soul. Life is but a day at most, Sprung from night, in darkness lost; As youth and love with sprightly dance, May delude the thoughtless pair; As thy day grows warm and high, Dost thou spurn the humble vale? Life's proud summits would'st thou scale? Evils lurk in felon wait: Dangers, eagle-pinion'd, bold, Soar around each cliffy hold, While cheerful peace, with linnet song, Chants the lowly dells among. As the shades of ev'ning close, There ruminate with sober thought, On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought; And teach the sportive younkers round, Saws of experience, sage and sound. Say, man's true, genuine estimate, |