Oh that my een were flowing burns!
My voice a lioness that mourns
Her darling cub's undoing!
That I might greet, that I might cry,
While Tories fall, while Tories fly,
And furious Whigs pursuing!
What Whig but wails the good Sir James !
Dear to his country by the names,
Friend, patron, benefactor!
Not Pulteney's wealth can Pulteney save!
And Hopetoun falls, the generous brave!
And Stewart, bold as Hector.
Thou, Pitt, shalt rue this overthrow ;
And Thurlow growl a curse of woe:
And Melville melt in wailing!
Now Fox and Sheridan rejoice!
And Burke shall sing, "O Prince, arise!
Thy power is all-prevailing."
For your poor friend, the bard, afar
He hears, and only hears, the war,
A cool spectator purely :
So when the storm the forest rends,
The robin in the hedge descends,
And sober chirps securely.
Additional verse in Closeburn MS.
Now for my friends' and brethren's sakes,
And for my dear-loved Land o' Cakes,
I pray with holy fire:
Lord, send a rough-shod troop o' hell,
O'er a' wad Scotland buy or sell,
To grind them in the mire!
THIRD EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ. OF FINTRY.
LATE crippled of an arm, and now a leg,t
About to beg a pass for leave to beg:
Dull, listless, teased, dejected, and deprest,
(Nature is adverse to a cripple's rest ;)
In writing to Mrs. Dunlop, on the 7th of February 1791, Burns tells her "that, by a fall, not from my horse, but with my horse, I have been a cripple for some time, and this is the first day my arm and hand have been able to serve me in writing."
Will generous Graham list to his poet's wail?
(It soothes poor Misery, heark'ning to her tale,)
And hear him curse the light he first survey'd,
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?
Thou, Nature! partial Nature! I arraign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain.
The lion and the bull thy care have found,
One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground:
Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell,
Th' envenom'd wasp, victorious, guards his cell;
Thy minions, kings, defend, control, devour,
In all th' omnipotence of rule and power;
Foxes and statesmen subtle wiles insure;
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure ;
Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgehog in their robes are snug;
Even silly woman has her warlike arts,
Her tongue and eyes-her dreaded spear and darts.
But, oh! thou bitter stepmother and hard,
To thy poor, fenceless, naked child-the bard!
A thing unteachable in worldly skill,
And half an idiot, too, more helpless still;
No heels to bear him from the opening dun:
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun;
No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn,
And those, alas! not Amalthea's horn:
No nerves olfactory, Mammon's trusty cur,
Clad in rich Dulness' comfortable fur ;-
In naked feeling, and in aching pride,
He bears the unbroken blast from every side :
Vampire booksellers drain him to the heart,
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.
Critics!-appall'd I venture on the name,
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame :
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes!
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose.
His heart by causeless wanton malice wrung,
By blockheads' daring into madness stung;
His well-won bays, than life itself more dear,
By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear :
Foil'd, bleeding, tortured, in the unequal strife,
The hapless poet flounders on through life;
Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fired,
And fled each muse that glorious once inspired,
Low sunk in squalid unprotected age,
The allusion here is to Alexander Munro, the Professor of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh in Burns's day.
Dead even resentment for his injured page,
He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's rage.
So, by some hedge, the generous steed deceased,
For half-starved snarling curs a dainty feast,
By toil and famine worn to skin and bone,
Lies senseless of each tugging bitch's son.
O Dulness! portion of the truly blest!
Calm shelter'd haven of eternal rest!
Thy sons ne'er madden in the fierce extremes
Of Fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams.
If mantling high she fills the golden cup,
With sober selfish ease they sip it
up:
Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve,
They only wonder "some folks" do not starve.
The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog,
And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog.
When Disappointment snaps the clue of Hope,
And through disastrous night they darkling grope,
With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear,
And just conclude that "fools are fortune's care."
So, heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks,
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox.
Not so the idle Muses' mad-cap train,
Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain !
In equanimity they never dwell,
By turns in soaring heaven or vaulted hell.
I dread thee, Fate, relentless and severe,
With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear!
Already one stronghold of hope is lost-
Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust;
(Fled, like the sun eclipsed as noon appears,
And left us darkling in a world of tears :)
Oh! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish prayer !-
Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare
Through a long life his hopes and wishes crown,
And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down!
May bliss domestic smooth his private path,
Give energy to life, and soothe his latest breath,
With many a filial tear circling the bed of death!
FOURTH EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ. OF FINTRY. THE following lines were the acknowledgment of the favour the previous epistle asked. Cunningham justly says, "Robert Graham of Fintry had the merit of doing all that was done for Burns in the way of raising him out of the toiling humility of his condition, and enabling him to serve the Muse without dread of want."
I CALL no goddess to inspire my strains,
A fabled Muse may suit a bard that feigns;
Friend of my life! my ardent spirit burns,
And all the tribute of my heart returns,
For boons accorded, goodness ever new,
The gift still dearer, as the giver you.
Thou orb of day! thou other paler light!
And all ye many sparkling stars of night;
If aught that giver from my mind efface;
If I that giver's bounty e'er disgrace;
Then roll to me along your wandering spheres,
Only to number out a villain's years!
THOUGH FICKLE FORTUNE HAS DECEIVED ME. "THE following," says Burns, "was written extempore, under the pressure of a heavy train of misfortunes, which, indeed, threatened to undo me altogether. It was just at the close of that dreadful period mentioned already, (in Commonplace-book, March 1784 ;) and though the weather has brightened up a little with me since, yet there has always been a tempest brewing round me in the grim sky of futurity, which I pretty plainly see will, some time or other, perhaps ere long, overwhelm me, and drive me into some doleful dell, to pine in solitary, squalid wretchedness."
THOUGH fickle Fortune has deceived me,
She promised fair and perform'd but ill;
Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereaved me,
Yet I bear a heart shall support me still.
I'll act with prudence as far's I'm able,
But if success I must never find,
Then come, Misfortune, I bid thee welcome,
I'll meet thee with an undaunted mind.
ON JOHN DOVE, INNKEEPER, MAUCHLINE. THE subject of the following lines was the landlord of the Whitefoord Arms in Mauchline.
HERE lies Johnny Pigeon;
What was his religion?
Whae'er desires to ken,
To some other warl'
Maun follow the carl,
For here Johnny Pigeon had nane!
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