TO HIS FRIENDS IN IRELAND,
WHO, ON A REPORT OF HIS DEATH, MADE AND PUBLISHED
SEVERAL ELEGIES, &c.
SIGHING fhepherds of Hibernia,
Thank ye for your kind concern a',
When a fause report beguiling,
Prov'd a draw-back on your fmiling:
Dight your een, and cease your grieving,
Allan's hale, and well, and living,
Singing, laughing, sleeping foundly,
Cowing beef, and drinking roundly;
Drinking roundly rum and claret,
Ale and ufquæ, bumpers fair out,
Supernaculum but spilling,
The leaft diamond* drawing, filling;
Sowfing fonnets on the laffes,
Hounding fatires at the affes,
Smiling at the furly critics,
And the pack-horse of politics;
* See the note on p. 216, vol. i.
Painting meadows, fhaws, and mountains,
Crooking burns, and flowing fountains;
Flowing fountains, where ilk gowan
Grows about the borders glowan,
Swelling fweetly, and inviting
Poets' lays, and lovers meeting;
Meeting kind to niffer kiffes,
Bargaining for better bliffes.
Hills in dreary dumps now lying,
And ye zephyrs swiftly flying,
And ye rivers gently turning,
And ye Philomelas mourning,
double fighing echoes,
Cease your fobbing, tears, and hey-ho's!
Banish a' your care and grieving,
Allan 's hale, and well, and living;
Early up on mornings shining,
Ilka fancy warm refining;
Giving ilka verse a burnish,
That man fecond volume furnish,
To bring in frae lord and lady
Meikle fame, and part of ready;
Splendid thing of conftant motion,
Fish'd for in the fouthern ocean;
Prop of gentry, nerve of battles,
Prize for which the gamefter rattles;
Belzie's banes, deceitfu', kittle,
Rifking a' to gain a little.
Pleafing Philip's tunefu' tickle,
Philomel, and kind Arbuckle;
Singers sweet, baith lads and laffes,
Tuning pipes on hill Parnaffus,
Allan kindly to you wishes
Lafting life and rowth of bliffes;
And that he may, when ye furrender
Sauls to heaven, in numbers tender
Give a' your fames a happy heezy,
And gratefully immortalize ye.
AN EPISTLE FROM A GENTLEMAN IN THE COUNTRY TO HIS FRIEND IN EDINBURGH.
O FRIEND! to fmoke and din confin'd,
Which fouls your claith's and frets your
And makes you rufty look and crabbed,
As if you were bep-'d or scabbed,
Or had been going thro' a dose
Of mercury to fave your nofe;
Let me advise you, out of pity,
To leave the chatt'ring, ftinking city,
Where pride and emptiness take place
Of plain integrity and grace;
Where hideous fcreams wad kill a cat,
Of wha buys this? or wha buys that?
And thro' the day, frae break o' morning,
The buz of bills, protests, and horning;
Besides the everlasting squabble
Among the great and little rabble,
Wha tear their lungs, and deave your ears,
With all their party hopes and fears ;
While rattling o'er their filly cant,
Learn'd frae the Mercury and Courant,
About the aid that comes frae Ruffia,
And the neutrality of Pruffia;
Of France's tyranny and flavery,
Their faithlefs fickleness and knavery;
Of Spain, the best beloved fon
Of the old whore of Babylon,
The warden of her whips and faggots,
And all her fuperftitious maggots;
Of all our gambols on the green,
To aid the bauld Imperial Queen,
When the Moft Chriftian fhoars to strike,
And fafheous Frederic gars her fike;
Of Genoa, and the refiftance
Of Corfica without affistance;
Of wading var-freging Savona,
And breaking fiddles at Cremona;
What jaws of blood and gore it cost,
Before a town is won or loft;
How much the allied armies have been a'
Propp'd by the monarch of Sardinia;
Of popes, statholders, faith's defenders,
Generals, marshals, and pretenders;
Of treaties, ministers, and kings,
And of a thousand other things;
Of all which their conceptions dull
Suits with the thickness of the scull.
Yet with such stuff ane man be worried,
That's thro your city's gauntlet hurried.
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