MR WILLIAM SMELLIE

To Miss Logan,1

With Beattie's Poems for a New-Year's Gift,
Jan. 1, 1787.

AGAIN the silent wheels of time

Their annual round have driven,
And you, tho' scarce in maiden prime,
Are so much nearer Heaven.

No gifts have I from Indian coasts
The infant year to hail;

I send you more than India boasts,
In Edwin's simple tale.

Our sex with guile, and faithless love,
Is charg'd, perhaps too true;

But may, dear maid, each lover prove
An Edwin still to you.

Mr William Smellie-A Sketch.

SHREWD Willie Smellie to Crochallan came;
The old cock'd hat, the grey surtout the same;
His bristling beard just rising in its might,
"Twas four long nights and days to shaving night:
His uncomb'd grizzly locks, wild staring, thatch'd
A head for thought profound and clear, unmatch'd;
Yet tho' his caustic wit was biting-rude,

His heart was warm, benevolent, and good.

1 The sister of Major Logan, already celebrated.

2 Burns's Edinburgh printer, who

introduced him to a society for High Jinks, called "The Crochallan Fencibles."

BONIE DUNDEE

Rattlin, Roarin Willie.1

As I cam by Crochallan,
I cannilie keekit ben;
Rattlin, roarin Willie

Was sittin at yon boord-en';
Sittin at yon boord-en',

And amang gude companie;

Rattlin, roarin Willie,

You're welcome hame to me!

Song-Bonie Dundee.2

My blessins upon thy sweet wee lippie!
My blessins upon thy bonie e'e-brie!
Thy smiles are sae like my blythe sodger laddie,
Thou's aye the dearer, and dearer to me!

But I'll big a bow'r on yon bonie banks,
Whare Tay rins wimplin by sae clear;
An' I'll cleed thee in the tartan sae fine,
And mak thee a man like thy daddie dear.

1 William Dunbar, W.S., of the Crochallan Fencibles. For them Burns collected the Fescennine verses hawked about as "The Merry Muses of Caledonia." There is a copy of Burns's KрUTTαdia, with an autograph song, in Sir Walter Scott's library at Abbotsford.

2 A variety of old Scotch songs seem to have been sung to "the cavalry canter of Bonnie Dundee."

These lines were written to add to the following:

"O whar gat ye that happer-meal bannock?

Silly auld bodie, O dinna ye see!

I gat it frae a young, brisk sodger
laddie

Atween Saint Johnstoun an' bonie
Dundee.

O gin I saw the laddie that gae me't! Aft has he doudl't me up on his knee ;

May heaven protect my bonie Scots laddio,

An' send him safe hame to his babie and me!"

INSCRIPTION FOR FERGUSSON

Extempore in the Court of Session.1

Tune-"Killiecrankie."

LORD ADVOCATE.

He clenched his pamphlets in his fist,
He quoted and he hinted,
Till, in a declamation-mist,
His argument he tinta it:
He gaped for't, he grapèd for't,

He fand it was awa, man;

But what his common sense came short,
He ekèd out wi' law, man.

MR ERSKINE.

Collected, Harry stood awee,b

Then open'd out his arm, man;
His Lordship sat wi' ruefu' e'e,

And ey'd the gathering storm, man:

Like wind-driven hail it did assail,
Or torrents owre a lin, man :

The BENCH sae wise lift up their eyes,
Half-wauken'd wi' the din, man.

Inscription for the Headstone of Fergusson the Poet.2

No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,
'No storied urn nor animated bust;
This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way,
To pour her sorrows o'er the Poet's dust.

EPISTLE TO MRS SCOTT

ADDITIONAL STANZAS.

She mourns, sweet tuneful youth, thy hapless fate;
Tho' all the powers of song thy fancy fired,
Yet Luxury and Wealth lay by in state,

And, thankless, starv'd what they so much admired.

This tribute, with a tear, now gives

A brother Bard-he can no more bestow :
But dear to fame thy Song immortal lives,
A nobler monumeut than Art can shew.

Inscribed under Fergusson's Portrait.1

CURSE on ungrateful man, that can be pleased,
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure.
O thou, my elder brother in misfortune,
By far my elder brother in the Muses,
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!
Why is the Bard unpitied by the world,
Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures?

Epistle to Mrs Scott,2

Gudewife of Wauchope-House, Roxburghshire.

I MIND it weel in early date,
When I was beardless, young, and blate,"

An' first could thresh the barn,

Or haud a yokin' at the pleugh;
An' tho' forfoughten sair eneugh,
Yet unco proud to learn:

& bashful.

b take a turn.

1 For the third time, Burns repeats his moral.

2 Mrs Scott, in some very fair Scotch verses, had promised to give the poet a plaid. Her own verses were pub

⚫ exhausted.

lished in 1801, after her death. Her home was in Liddesdale.

Currie printed only the first three verses of the poem in 1800: it was then dropped in his later editions, and first given entire in Clark's edition (1881).

• rest.

EPISTLE TO MRS SCOTT

When first amang the yellow corn
A man I reckon'd was,
An' wi' the lavea ilk merry morn
Could rank my rig and lass,
Still shearing, and clearing
The tither stooked raw,
Wi' claivers, an' haivers,b
Wearing the day awa.

E'en then, a wish, (I mind its pow'r,)
A wish that to my latest hour
Shall strongly heave my breast,
That I for poor auld Scotland's sake
Some usefu' plan or book could make,
Or sing a sang at least.

The rough burr-thistle, spreading wide
Amang the bearded bear,"

I turn'd the weeder-clips1 aside,
An' spar'd the symbol dear:
No nation, no station,

My envy e'er could raise;
A Scot still, butd blot still,

I knew nae higher praise.

But still the elements o' sang,
In formless jumble, right an' wrang,
Wild floated in my brain;
"Till on that har'st I said before,
My partner in the merry core,
She rous'd the forming strain;
I see her yet the sonsie quean,
That lighted up my jingle,

Her witching smile, her pawky" een2
That gart my heart-strings tingle;

bgossip and nonsense.

• harvest. 1"My weeding heuk" (Currie).

engaging.