Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ.

OF FINTRAY: ON THE CLOSE OF THE DISPUTED ELECTION BETWEEN SIR JAMES JOHNSTONE AND CAPTAIN MILLER, FOR THE DUMFRIES DISTRICT OF BOROUGHS.

[blocks in formation]

Craigdarroch led a light-arm'd corps,
Tropes, metaphors and figures pour,

Like Hecla streaming thunder:
Glenriddel, skill'd 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 flinch'd 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 entrench'd his hold,

And threaten'd worse damnation.

To these what Tory hosts oppos'd,

With these what Tory warriors clos'd,

Surpasses my descriving:

Squadrons extended long and large,

With furious speed rush to the charge,

Like raging devils driving.

What verse can sing, what prose narrate,
The butcher deeds of bloody fate

Amid this mighty tulzie !
Grim Horror girn'd-pale Terror roar'd,
As Murther at his thrapple shor'd,

And Hell mix'd in the brulzie.

As highland craigs by thunder cleft,
When lightnings fire the stormy lift,

Hurl down with crashing rattle,
As flames among a hundred woods;
As headlong foam a hundred floods;
Such is the rage of battle!

The stubborn Tories dare to die;
As soon the rooted oaks would fly

Before th' approaching fellers:
The Whigs come on like Ocean's roar,
When all his wintry billows pour

Against the Buchan Bullers.

[blocks in formation]

VERSES

ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WOODS NEAR DRUMLANRIG.

As on the banks o' wandering Nith,

Ae smiling simmer-morn I strayed, And traced its bonie howes and haughs, Where linties sang and lambkins played,

I sat me down upon a craig,

And drank my fill o' fancy's dream, When, from the eddying deep below, Uprose the genius of the stream.

Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow, And troubled, like his wintry wave, And deep, as sughs the boding wind

Amang his eaves, the sigh he gave 'And came ye here, my son,' he cried, 'To wander in my birken shade? To muse some favourite Scottish theme, Or sing some favourite Scottish

maid?

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

STANZAS ON THE DUKE OF QUEENSBERRY.

How shall I sing Drumlanrig's | Hate, envy, oft the Douglas bore;

Grace,

Discarded remnant of a race

Once great in martial story?

His forbears' virtues all

ed

contrast

The very name of Douglas blasted His that inverted glory.

But he has superadded more,

And sunk them in contempt: Follies and crimes have stained the

name,

But, Queensberry, thine the virgin claim,

From aught that's good exempt.

EPISTLE TO MAJOR LOGAN.

HAIL, thairm-inspirin', rattlin' Willie!
Though fortune's road be rough an'
hilly

To every fiddling, rhyming billie,
We never heed,
But take it like the unback'd filly,
Proud o' her speed.

When idly goavan whyles we saunter,
Yirr, fancy barks, awa' we canter
Uphill, down brae, till some mishan-
ter,

Some black bog-hole,
Arrests us, then the scathe an' banter

My hand-waled curse keep hard in

chase

The harpy, hoodock, purse - proud
race,

Wha count on poortith as disgrace-
Their tuneless hearts!
May fire-side discords jar a base
To a' their parts!

But come, your hand, my careless
brither,

I' th' ither warl' if there's anither,
An' that there is I've little swither
About the matter;

We're forced to thole. We cheek for chow shall jog thegither,
I'se ne'er bid better.

Hale be your heart! Hale be your

fiddle!

Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle,
To cheer you through the weary widdle
O' this wild warl',

Until you on a crummock driddle
A gray-hair'd carl.

[blocks in formation]

We've faults and failings-granted clearly,

We're frail backsliding mortals merely,
Eve's bonie squad priests wyte them
sheerly

For our grand fa';
But still, but still, I like them dearly-
God bless them a'!

[blocks in formation]
« PredošláPokračovať »