'With future hope I oft would gaze
Fond, on thy little early ways,
Thy rudely caroll'd chiming phrase,
In uncouth rhymes;

Fir'd at the simple, artless lays
Of other times.

'I saw thee seek the sounding shore,
Delighted with the dashing roar;
Or when the North his fleecy store
Drove thro' the sky,
I saw grim Nature's visage hoar
Struck thy young eye.

'Or when the deep green-mantled earth
Warm cherish'd ev'ry floweret's birth,
And joy and music pouring forth
In ev'ry grove;

I saw thee eye the general mirth
With boundless love.

When ripen'd fields and azure skies
Call'd forth the reapers' rustling noise,
I saw thee leave their ev'ning joys,
And lonely stalk,

To vent thy bosom's swelling rise,
In pensive walk.

'When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong, Keen-shivering, shot thy nerves along, Those accents grateful to thy tongue,

THE VISION

Th' adored Name,

I taught thee how to pour in song,
To soothe thy flame.

'I saw thy pulse's maddening play,
Wild send thee Pleasure's devious way,
Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray,

By passion driven;

But yet the light that led astray

Was light from Heaven. 12

'I taught thy manners-painting strains,
The loves, the ways of simple swains,
Till now, o'er all my wide domains
Thy fame extends;

And some, the pride of Coila's plains,1
Become thy friends.

13

'Thou canst not learn, nor I can show,
To paint with Thomson's landscape glow;
Or wake the bosom-melting throe,

With Shenstone's art;

Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow
Warm on the heart.

'Yet, all beneath th' unrivall'd rose,
The lowly daisy sweetly blows;

Tho' large the forest's monarch throws

12 The last two lines reveal the profundity of Burns as a philosopher. Plato, Goethe, and Ruskin expounded the truth that "evil springs from unused good." It makes the truth more clear to substitute "misused" for "unused."

" Kyle.

His army-shade,

Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows, Adown the glade.

"Then never murmur nor repine;
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine;
And trust me, not Potosi's mine,
Nor king's regard,

Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,
A rustic bard.

'To give my counsels all in one,
Thy tuneful flame still careful fan:
Preserve the dignity of Man,

With soul erect;

And trust the Universal Plan

Will all protect.

'And wear thou this'-she solemn said,
And bound the holly round my head:
The polish'd leaves and berries red
Did rustling play;

And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.

ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID

ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID

OR THE RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS

My Son, these maxims make a rule,
An' lump them ay thegither;

The Rigid Righteous is a fool,
The Rigid Wise anither:

The cleanest corn that e'er was dight
May hae some pyles o' caff in;
So ne'er a fellow-creature slight
For random fits o' daffin.

SOLOMON.-Eccles. ch. vii. verse 16

O YE wha are sae guid yoursel,
Sae pious and sae holy,

Ye've nought to do but mark and tell
Your neibours' fauts and folly!
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,
Supplied wi' store o' water;
The heapet happer's ebbing still,
An' still the clap plays clatter.

Hear me, ye venerable core,

As counsel for poor mortals

That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door

For glakit Folly's portals:

I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,
Would here propone defences-
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes,
Their failings and mischances.

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone

Decidedly can try us;

He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance let's be mute,

We never can adjust it;

What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.