BEWARE O' BONIE ANN

To Miss Cruickshank,1

A very Young Lady.

Written on the Blank Leaf of a Book, presented
to her by the Author.

BEAUTEOUS Rosebud, young and gay,

Blooming on thy early May,

Never may'st thou, lovely flower,
Chilly shrink in sleety shower!

Never Boreas' hoary path,

Never Eurus' pois'nous breath,
Never baleful stellar lights,
Taint thee with untimely blights!
Never, never reptile thief
Riot on thy virgin leaf!

Nor even Sol too fiercely view
Thy bosom blushing still with dew! 2

May'st thou long, sweet crimson gem,
Richly deck thy native stem;
Till some ev'ning, sober, calm,
Dropping dews, and breathing balm,
While all around the woodland rings,
And ev'ry bird thy requiem sings;
Thou, amid the dirgeful sound,
Shed thy dying honours round,
And resign to parent Earth

The loveliest form she e'er gave birth.

Beware o' Bonie Ann.3

YE gallants bright, I rede you right,
Beware o' bonie Ann;
Her comely face sae fu' o' grace,
Your heart she will trepan:

1 A daughter of Mr Cruickshank, the master in the High School.

2 A MS. variant is :

Nor Phoebus drink with scorching ray

The freshness of thine early day.

3 Miss Ann Masterton, daughter of a writing master. Probably written in Edinburgh, in 1789.

THE DEPARTED REGENCY BILL

Her een sae bright, like stars by night,
Her skin is like the swan ;
Sae jimply lac'd her genty waist,
That sweetly ye might span.

Youth, Grace, and Love attendant move,
And pleasure leads the van:

In a' their charms, and conquering arms,
They wait on bonie Ann.

The captive bands may chain the hands,
But love enslaves the man :

Ye gallants braw, I rede you a',
Beware o' bonie Ann!

Ode on the departed Regency Bill.1
DAUGHTER of Chaos' doting years,

Nurse of ten thousand hopes and fears,
Whether thy airy, unsubstantial shade
(The rights of sepulture now duly paid)
Spread abroad its hideous form
On the roaring civil storm,
Deafening din and warring rage
Factions wild with factions wage;
Or under-ground, deep-sunk, profound,
Among the demons of the earth,

With groans that make the mountains shake,
Thou mourn thy ill-starr'd, blighted birth;
Or in the uncreated Void,

Where seeds of future being fight,
With lessen'd step thou wander wide,

To greet thy Mother-Ancient Night.
And as each jarring, monster-mass is past,
Fond recollect what once thou wast:
In manner due, beneath this sacred oak,
Hear, Spirit, hear! thy presence I invoke !
By a Monarch's heaven-struck fate,

By a disunited State,

1 Fox insisted on a Regency during opposed. The King began to recover

the insanity of George III.

Pitt

in March 1789.

THE DEPARTED REGENCY BILL

By a generous Prince's wrongs,
By a Senate's strife of tongues,
By a Premier's sullen pride,
Louring on the changing tide;
By dread Thurlow's powers to awe
Rhetoric, blasphemy and law;
By the turbulent ocean-
A Nation's commotion,
By the harlot-caresses
Of borough addresses,
By days few and evil,
(Thy portion, poor devil!)
By Power, Wealth, and Show,
(The Gods by men adored,)
By nameless Poverty,

(Their hell abhorred,)

By all they hope, by all they fear,
Hear! and Appear!

Stare not on me, thou ghastly Power!
Nor, grim with chained defiance, lour:
No Babel-structure would I build

Where, order exil'd from his native sway,
Confusion may the REGENT-Sceptre wield,
While all would rule and none obey:
Go, to the world of man relate
The story of thy sad, eventful fate;
And call presumptuous Hope to hear
And bid him check his blind career;
And tell the sore-prest sons of Care,
Never, never to despair!

Paint Charles's speed on wings of fire,
The object of his fond desire,
Beyond his boldest hopes, at hand :

Paint all the triumph of the Portland Band;
Mark how they lift the joy-exulting voice,
And how their num'rous creditors rejoice;
But just as hopes to warm enjoyment rise,
Cry CONVALESCENCE! and the vision flies.

EPISTLE TO JAMES TENNANT

Then next pourtray a dark'ning twilight gloom,
Eclipsing sad a gay, rejoicing morn,

While proud Ambition to th' untimely tomb
By gnashing, grim, despairing fiends is borne:
Paint ruin, in the shape of high D[undas]
Gaping with giddy terror o'er the brow;
In vain he struggles, the fates behind him press,
And clam'rous hell yawns for her prey below:
How fallen That, whose pride late scaled the skies!
And This, like Lucifer, no more to rise!

Again pronounce the powerful word;

See Day, triumphant from the night, restored.

Then know this truth, ye Sons of Men!
(Thus ends thy moral tale,)

Your darkest terrors may be vain,

Your brightest hopes may fail.

Epistle to James Tennant of Glenconner.1

AULD Comrade dear, and brither sinner,
How's a' the folk about Glenconner?
How do you this blae eastlina wind,
That's like to blaw a body blind?
For me, my faculties are frozen,
My dearest member nearly dozen'd.b
I've sent you here, by Johnie Simson,
Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on;
Smith, wi' his sympathetic feeling,
An' Reid, to common sense appealing.
Philosophers have fought and wrangled,
An' meikle Greek an' Latin mangled,
Till wi' their logic-jargon tir'd,
And in the depth of science mir'd,
To common sense they now appeal,
What wives and wabsters see and feel.

blue eastern.

C

b benumbed.

1 Mr Tennant was the brother of Charles Tennant, to whom Glasgow

c weavers.

owes the form and fumes of St Rollox chimney.

EPISTLE TO JAMES TENNANT

But, hark ye, friend! I charge you strictly,
Peruse them, an' return them quickly:
For now I'm grown sae cursed doucea
I pray and ponder butt the house b;
My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin,
Perusing Bunyan, Brown an' Boston,
Till by an' by, if I haud on,
I'll grunt a real gospel groan :
Already I begin to try it,

To cast my e'en up like a pyet,
When by the gun she tumbles o'er
Flutt'ring an' gasping in her gore:
Sae shortly you shall see me bright,
A burning an' a shining light.

My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen,
The ace an' waled of honest men:
When bending down wi' auld grey hairs
Beneath the load of years and cares,
May He who made him still support him,
An' views beyond the grave comfort him;
His worthy fam❜ly far and near,
God bless them a' wi' grace and gear!

My auld schoolfellow, preacher Willie,

The manly tar, my mason-billie,
And Auchenbay, I wish him joy,
If he's a parent, lass or boy,

May he be dad, and Meg the mither,
Just five-and-forty years thegither!
And no forgetting wabster' Charlie,
I'm tauld he offers very fairly.

An' Lord, remember singing Sannock,
Wi' hale breeks, saxpence, an' a bannock!
And next, my auld acquaintance, Nancy,
Since she is fitted to her fancy,

An' her kind stars hae airted till her

A guid chiel wi' a pickle siller.1