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206

TO R. GRAHAM.

Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding industry, and sober worth:
Thence peasan's, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise' whole genus take their birth :
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics' many-aproned kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net;
The caput mortuum of gross desires

Makes a material for mere knights and squires;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow:
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,

Then marks th' unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines:
Last, she sublimes th' Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.

The ordered system fair before her stood,
Nature, well pleased, pronounced it very good;
But ere she gave creating labour o'er,
Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more.
Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter,

Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter;
With arch alacrity and conscious glee
(Nature may have her whim as well as we,
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it)
She forms the thing, and christens it--a poet;
Creature, though oft the prey of care and sorrow,
When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow;
A being formed t' amuse his graver friends,
Admired and praised-and there the homage ends :

A mortal quite unfit for Fortune's strife,
Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life;
Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give,
Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live;
Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groan,
Yet frequent all unheeded in his own.

Cumnock. I intend inserting them, or something like them, in an Epistle, which I am going to write to the gentleman on whose friendship my Excise hopes depend, Mr. Graham, of Fintry, one of the worthiest and most accomplished gentlemen, not only of this country, but, I will dare to say, of this age.' To Dr. Moore, Burns wrote, in January, 1789: "I enclose you an essay of mine in a walk of poesy to me entirely new. I mean the Epistle addressed to Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintry, a gentleman of uncommon worth, to whom I lie under very great obligations. This story of the poem, like most of my poems, is connected with my own story, and to give you the one, I must give you something of the other."

TO R. GRAHAM.

But honest Nature is not quite a Turk;
She laughed at first, then felt for her poor
Pitying the propless climber of mankind,
She cast about a standard tree to find;
And, to support his helpless woodbine state,
Attached him to the generous truly great,-
A title, and the only one I claim,

work.

To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham.

Pity the tuneful Muses' hapless train,
Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main!
Their hearts no selfish, stern, absorbent stuff,
That never gives--though humbly takes enough;
The little Fate allows, they share as soon,
Unlike sage, proverbed Wisdom's hard-wrung boon.
The world were blest did bliss on them depend,-
Ah, that “the friendly e'er should want a friend !”
Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son,
Who life and wisdom at one race begun,
Who feel by reason and who give by rule,
(Instinct's a brute, and sentiment a fool!)

207

Who make poor "will do " wait upon "I should'
We own they're prudent, but who feels they 're good?
Ye wise ones, hence! ye hurt the social eye!
God's image rudely etched on base alloy !
But come ye who the godlike pleasure know,
Heaven's attribute distinguished-to bestow!
Whose arms of love would grasp the human race:
Come, thou who giv'st with all a courtier's grace;
Friend of my life, true patron of my rhymes!
Prop of my dearest hopes for future times.
Why shrinks my soul, half blushing, half afraid,
Backward, abashed to ask thy friendly aid?"
I know my need, I know thy giving hand,
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command;
But there are such who court the tuneful Nine-
Heavens! should the branded character be mine!
Whose verse in manhood's pride sublimely flows,
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose.
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit
Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit!
Seek not the proofs in private life to find;
Pity the best of words should be but wind!
So to heaven's gates the lark's shrill song ascends,
But grovelling on the earth the carol ends.
In all the clam'rous cry of starving want,
They dun benevolence with shameless front;
Oblige them, patronize their tinsel lays,
They persecute you all your future days!

208

TO HUGH PARKER.

Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain,
My horny fist assume the plough again;
The piebald jacket let me patch once more;
On eighteen-pence a week I've lived before.
Though, thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift!
I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift:
That, placed by thee upon the wished-for height,
Where, man and nature fairer in her sight,
My Muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight.

EPISTLE TO HUGH PARKER.'

In this strange land, this uncouth clime,
A land unknown to prose or rhyme;
Where words ne'er crost the Muse's heckles, 2
Nor limpit in poetic shackles ;

A land that prose did never view it,

Except when drunk he stacher't through it:
Here, ambushed by the chimla3 cheek,
Hid in an atmosphere of reek,

I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk,
I hear it for in vain I leuk.
The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel,
Enhusked by a fog infernal:

Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,
I sit and count my sins by chapters;
For life and spunk like ither Christians,
I'm dwindled down to mere existence;
Wi' nae converse but Gallowa' bodies,
Wi' nae kenned face but Jenny Geddes.*
Jenny, my Pegasean pride!

Dowie she saunters down Nithside,
And aye a westlin' leuk she throws,

While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose!

Was it for this, wi' canny care,

Thou bure the Bard through many a shire?
At howes or hillocks never stumbled,

And late or early never grumbled?
Oh, had I power like inclination,
I'd heeze thee up a constellation,

This epistle, dated June, 1788, was addressed to Mr. Hugh Parker, merchant, in Kilmarnock, one of the Poet's earliest friends and patrons. Mr. Parker subscribed for thirty copies of the Poet's Works, when he first brought them out at the Kilmarnock press.

2

Sharp-pointed spikes used for dressing flax, 4 His mare. 5 Hollows.

3 Chimney.

TO ROBERT GRAHAM.

To canter with the Sagitarre,
Or loup the ecliptic like a bar;
Or turn the pole like any arrow;

Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow,
Down the zodiac urge the race,

And cast dirt on his godship's face;
For I could lay my bread and kail
He'd ne'er cast saut upo' my tail.-
Wi' a' this care and a' this grief,
And sma', sma' prospect of relief,
And nought but peat-reek i' my head,
How can I write what ye can read ?-
Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o' June,
Ye'll find me in a better tune;
But till we meet and weet our whistle,
Tak' this excuse for nae epistle.

ROBERT BURNS.

209

SECOND EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ., OF FINTRY,

ON THE CLOSE OF THE DISPUTED ELECTION BETWEEN SIR JAMES
JOHNSTONE AND CAPTAIN MILLER, FOR THE DUMFRIES DIS-
TRICT OF BOROUGHS.

FINTRY, my stay in worldly strife,
Friend o' my Muse, friend o' my life,
Are ye as idle 's I am?

Come then, wi' uncouth, kintra fleg,
O'er Pegasus I'll fling my leg,

And ye shall see me try him.

I'll sing the zeal Drumlanrig' bears,
Wha left the all-important cares

Of princes and their darlins;
And, bent on winning borough touns,
Came shaking hands wi' wabster louns,
And kissing barefit carlins.2

Combustion through our boroughs rode,
Whistling his roaring pack abroad,
Of mad, unmuzzled lions;

As Queensberry "buff and blue" unfurled,
And Westerha" and Hopeton hurled
To every Whig defiance.

The fourth Duke of Queensberry, of infamous memory,

2 Bare-footed old women.

3 Sir James Johnstone, the Tory candidate,

210

TO ROBERT GRAHAM.

But cautious Queensberry left the war,
Th' unmannered dust might soil his star;
Besides, he hated bleeding:

But left behind him heroes bright,
Heroes in Cæsarean fight,

Or Ciceronian pleading.

O! for a throat like huge Mons-meg,'
To muster o'er each ardent Whig
Beneath Drumlanrig's banners;

Heroes and heroines commix,

All in the field of politics,

To win immortal honours.

M'Murdo and his lovely spouse,
(The enamoured laurels kiss her brows!)
Led on the loves and graces:
She won each gaping burgess' heart,
While he, all-conquering, played his part
Among their wives and lasses.

3

Craigdarroch led a light-armed corps;
Tropes, metaphors, and figures pour,

Like Hecla streaming thunder:
Glenriddel, skilled in rusty coins,
Blew up each Tory's dark designs,

And bared the treason under.

In either wing two champions fought,
Redoubted Staig, who set at nought
The wildest savage Tory :

And Welsh, who ne'er yet flinched his ground,
High-waved his magnum-bonum round
With Cyclopean fury.

Miller brought up th' artillery ranks,
The many-pounders of the Banks,

Resistless desolation!

While Maxwelton, that baron bold,
'Mid Lawson's port entrenched his hold,
And threatened worse damnation.

A large old cannon in Edinburgh.

2 The Chamberlain of the Duke of Queensberry at Drumlanrig.

3 Ferguson of Craigdarroch.

Captain Riddel of Glenriddel, a friend of the Poet.

5 Provost Staig of Dumfries.

7 Lawson, a wine merchant in Dumfries.

6 Sheriff Welsh.

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