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In days when daisies deck the ground,
An' blackbirds whistle clear,

With honest joy our hearts will bound,

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To see the coming year.

On braes, when we please, then
We'll sit an' sowth a tune,
Syne rhyme till't, we'll time till❜t,

An' sing't when we hae done."

These two last lines the critic thinks feeble'; but they are not feebler than many others to be found in poems by the most celebrated authors, in much less difficult measures. In the following stanza, the advantages to be derived from adversity are described with the genuine spirit of the Stoic philosophy.

"Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce,

Nor make our scanty pleasures less,

By pining at our state;

An' even should misfortunes come,
I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some,
An's thankfu' for them yet:
They gi'e the wit of age to youth;
They let us ken oursel;

They make us see the naked truth,

The real guid an' ill.

Though losses an' crosses

Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae ither where."

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The conclusion of this epistle is eminently happy in the exhibition of a hackneyed allegory in a new form.

No poet was ever better acquainted with the passion of love, with all its hopes and fears, its blisses and disappointments, than BURNS; and therefore no poet was better qualified to write the Lament of a Friend, on the unfortunate Issue of an Amour. The following stanza, in particular, is composed in the language of truth and nature.

"No idly-feign'd poetic pains

My sad love-lorn lamentings claim;
No shepherd's pipe-Arcadian strains;
No fabled tortures, quaint and tame :
The plighted faith, the mutual flame,
The oft attested powers above,
The promis'd father's tender name—
These were the pledges of my love."

The whole poem is in unison with this; but the limits allotted to the present work admit not of longer quotation.

WE are told by the bard's latest biographer, that his mind was of a gloomy cast, as many vigorous minds have been; and we find, accordingly, that he succeeds in nothing better than

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in painting gloomy scenes. His ode entitled Despondency is a masterpiece in this kind of writing. After describing, in the most forcible language, his griefs and cares to be such as made life a load too heavy to be borne, he contrasts his own desponding state with that of men immersed in business; of whom he says, with philosophic truth, that even when the end, for which they toil and bustle, is denied to them,

"Yet, while the busy means are ply'd, They bring their own reward."

He then thinks of the hermit, who seems to have as little employment as himself, and says,

"How blest the solitary's lot,

Who, all forgetting, all forgot,
Within his humble cell,

The cavern wild with tangling roots,
Sits o'er his newly-gather'd fruits,

Beside his crystal well!

Or haply, to his ev'ning thought,
By unfrequented stream,

The ways of men are distant brought,

A faint-collected dream:

While praising, and raising

His thoughts to Heav'n on high,

As wand'ring, meand'ring,

He views the solemn sky."

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