EPISTLE

FROM

ESOPUS TO MARIA.

FROM those drear solitudes and frowsy cells,
Where infamy with sad repentance dwells;
Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast,
And deal from iron hands the spare repast;
Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin,
Blush at the curious stranger peeping in ;
Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar,
Resolve to drink, nay half to whore no more;
Where tiny thieves not destin'd yet to swing,
Beat hemp for others, riper for the string:
From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date,
To tell Maria her Esopus' fate.

"Alas! I feel I am no actor here!"

'Tis real hangmen, real scourges bear!

Prepare, Maria, for a horrid tale

Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale;

Will make thy hair, tho' erst from gipsy polled, By barber woven, and by barber sold,

Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care,

Like hoary bristles to erect and stare.

The hero of the mimic scene, no more

I start in Hamlet, in Othello roar ;

Or haughty Chieftain, 'mid the din of arms,
In Highland bonnet woo Malvina's charms;
While sans culottes stoop up the mountain high,
And steal from me Maria's prying eye.

*

Blest Highland bonnet! Once my proudest dress,
Now prouder still, Maria's temples press.
I see her wave thy towering plumes afar,
And call each coxcomb to the wordy war.
I see her face the first of Ireland's sons,*
And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze;
The crafty colonel † leaves the tartaned lines,
For other wars, where he a hero shines;
The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred,
Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head;
Comes, 'mid a string of coxcombs to display,
That veni, vidi, vici, is his way;

The shrinking bard adown an alley skulks,
And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich hulks;
Though there, his heresies in church and state
Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate :
Still she undaunted reels and rattles on,
And dares the public like a noontide sun.
(What scandal called Maria's janty stagger,
The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger?

Whose spleen e'en worse than BURNS' venom when
He dips in gall unmixed his eager pen,—

And pours his vengeance in the burning line,
Who christened thus Maria's lyre divine;
The idiot strum of vanity bemused,

And even th' abuse of poesy abused!

Who called her verse, a parish workhouse made For motley, foundling fancies, stolen or strayed?)

A workhouse! ah, that sound awakes my woes,
And pillows on the thorn my rack'd repose!
In durance vile here must I wake and weep,
And all my frowzy couch in sorrow steep;
That straw where many a rogue has lain of yore,
And vermined gipsies littered heretofore.

Why, Lonsdale thus, thy wrath on vagrants pour,
Must earth no rascal save thyself endure?
Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell,
And make a vast monopoly of hell?

Thou know'st, the virtues cannot hate thee worse,
The vices also, must they club their curse?
Or must no tiny sin to others fall,
Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all?

Maria, send me too thy griefs and cares;
In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares.
As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls,
Who on my fair one satire's vengeance hurls?
Who calls thee, pert, affected, vain coquette,
A wit in folly, and a fool in wit.

Who

says, that fool alone is not thy due,

And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true?
Our force united on thy foes we'll turn,

And dare the war with all of woman born :
For who can write and speak as thou and I?
My periods that decyphering defy,

And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply.

The Esopus of this strange epistle was Williamson the actor, and the Maria to whom it is addressed was Mrs. Riddel. The actor we may leave in the obscurity to which men of indifferent talents sink, who

"In Hamlet start, or in Othello roar;"

but the lady merits no such oblivion, were it only for her having forgiven the Poet for his lampoons-and sincerer still, perhaps written a sensible, clear, heart-warm account of him when laid in the grave. Nor did her kindness stop there; she stirred herself actively in promoting the welfare of his widow and children: she maintained a long correspondence with the eminent sculptor, Banks, respecting a proper memorial to the memory of Burnson which she displayed much good sense and good feeling, and she communicated to Currie many traits of his character, and habits of composition.

Not a little of the man is visible in this poem: Burns sees nothing in the poetry of "Maria," but

"Motley foundling fancies, stolen or strayed;"

and he hears nothing in her conversation, save her "Still matchless tongue, that conquers all reply."

The poem is printed from his manuscript.

POEM

ON PASTORAL POETRY.

HAIL Poesie! thou Nymph reserv'd!
In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerv'd
Frae common sense, or sunk enerv'd

'Mang heaps o' clavers;

And och o'er aft thy joes hae starv'd,

Mid a' thy favours!

Say, Lassie, why thy train amang,
While loud, the trump's heroic clang,

And sock or buskin skelp alang

To death or marriage;

Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang

But wi' miscarriage?

In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives;
Eschylus' pen Will Shakspeare drives;
Wee Pope, the knurlin, 'till him rives

Horatian fame;

In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives

Even Sappho's flame.