What comes o' thee?

Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing,
And close thy e'e?

E'en you on murdering errands toil'd,
Lone, from your savage homes exiled,
The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoil'd,
My heart forgets,

While pitiless the tempest wild

Sore on you beats.

Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign,
Dark, muffled, view'd the dreary plain;
Still crowding thoughts a pensive train,
Rose in my soul,

When on my ear this plaintive strain,
Slow, solemn, stole-

"Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost!
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!
Not all your rage, as now united, shows
More hard unkindness, unrelenting,

Vengeful malice, unrepenting,

Than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows.

"See stern oppression's iron grip, Or mad ambition's gory hand,

Sending, like bloodhounds from the slip,

Woe, want, and murder o'er a land!

"E'en in the peaceful rural vale,

Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale,

How pamper'd Luxury, Flattery by her side,

The parasite empoisoning her ear,

With all the servile wretches in the rear,

Looks o'er proud property, extended wide; And eyes the simple rustic hind,

Whose toil upholds the glittering show,

A creature of another kind,

Some coarser substance, unrefined,

Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below.

"Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe, With lordly Honor's lofty brow,

The powers you proudly own?
Is there, beneath Love's noble name,
Can harbor, dark, the selfish aim,
To bless himself alone!
Mark maiden-innocence a prey
To love-pretending snares,
This boasted Honor turns away,
Shunning soft Pity's rising sway,

Regardless of her tears, and unavailing prayers!
Perhaps, this hour, in misery's squalid nest,

She strains your infant to her joyless breast, And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast! "O ye! who, sunk in beds of down, Feel not a want but what yourselves create, Think for a moment on his wretched fate, Whom friends and fortune quite disown! Ill-satisfied keen nature's clamorous call,

Stretch'd on his straw, he lays himself to sleep,
While, through the ragged roof and chinky wall,
Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap!

"Think on the dungeon's grim confine,
Where guilt and poor misfortune pine!
Guilt, erring man, relenting, view;
But shall thy legal rage pursue
The wretch, already crushéd low
By cruel Fortune's undeservéd blow?
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress,
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!"
I heard nae mair, for chanticleer
Shook off the pouthery snaw,'

And hail'd the morning with a cheer,
A cottage-rousing craw.

But deep this truth impress'd my mind-
Through all his works abroad,

The heart, benevolent and kind,
The most resembles God.

1 Flaky snow.

THE LAMENT,

OCCASIONED BY THE UNFORTUNATE ISSUE OF A FRIEND'S AMOURE

Alas! how oft does Goodness wound itself,

And sweet Affection prove the spring of woe !-Home.

O THOU pale orb, that silent shines,
While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch that inly pines,
And wanders here to wail and weep!
With woe I nightly vigils keep,

Beneath thy wan unwarming beam;
And mourn in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream.

I joyless view thy rays adorn
The faintly-marked distant hill:
I joyless view thy trembling horn,
Reflected in the gurgling rill:
My fondly fluttering heart, be still!
Thou busy power, Remembrance, cease!
Ah! must the agonizing thrill

Forever bar returning peace!

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 promised father's tender name-
These were the pledges of my love!

Encircled in her clasping arms,

How have the raptured moments flown!
How have I wish'd for Fortune's charms
For her dear sake, and hers alone!
And must I think it! Is she gone,
My secret heart's exulting boast?
And does she heedless hear my groan?
And is she ever, ever lost?

Oh! can she bear so base a heart,

So lost to honor, lost to truth,

As from the fondest lover part,

The plighted husband of her youth! Alas! life's path may be unsmooth!

Her way may lie through rough distress!
Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe,
Her sorrows share, and make them less?

Ye winged hours that o'er us past,
Enraptured more, the more enjoy'd,
Your dear remembrance in my breast
My fondly treasured thoughts employ'd.
That breast, how dreary now and void,
For her too scanty once of room!
Even every ray of hope destroy'd,
And not a wish to gild the gloom!

The morn that warns the approaching day,
Awakes me up to toil and woe:
I see the hours in long array,

That I must suffer, lingering, slow.
Full many a pang, and many a throe,
Keen recollection's direful train,
Must wing my soul, ere Phoebus, low,
Shall kiss the distant western main.

And when my nightly couch I try,

Sore harass'd out with care and grief, My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye, Keep watchings with the nightly thief: Or, if I slumber, Fancy, chief,

Reigns haggard-wild, in sore affright: Even day, all-bitter, brings relief

From such a horror-breathing night!

O thou bright queen, who o'er the expanse Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway! Oft has thy silent-marking glance

Observed us, fondly-wandering, stray!
The time, unheeded, sped away,

While love's luxurious pulse beat high,
Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray,
To mark the mutual-kindling eye.

Oh! scenes in strong remembrance set!
Scenes never, never, to return!

Scenes, if, in stupor, I forget,
Again I feel, again I burn:
From every joy and pleasure torn,

Life's weary vale I'll wander through:
And hopeless, comfortless, I'll mourn
A faithless woman's broken vow.1

LAMENT.2

Written when the Author was about to leave his native country.

O'ER the mist-shrouded cliffs of the lone mountain straying,
Where the wild winds of winter incessantly rave,
What woes wring my heart while intently surveying
The storm's gloomy path on the breast of the wave!

Ye foam-crested billows, allow me to wail,

Ere ye toss me afar from my loved native shore; Where the flower which bloom'd sweetest in Coila's green vale,

The pride o' my bosom, my Mary's no more.

No more by the banks of the streamlet we 'll wander,
And smile at the moon's rimpled face in the wave;
No more shall my arms cling with fondness around her,
For the dewdrops of morning fall cold on her grave.

Nor more shall the soft thrill of love warm my breast,
I haste with the storm to a far distant shore;
Where unknown, unlamented, my ashes shall rest,
And joy shall revisit my bosom no more.

LAMENT,

FOR JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN.

THE wind blew hollow frae the hills,
By fits the sun's departing beam

Look'd on the fading yellow woods

That waved o'er Lugar's winding stream:

1 A detail of the circumstance on which this affecting Poem was composed

will be found in Lockhart's Life of the Poet, p. 85.

2 First published in the Dumfries Weekly Journal, July 5th, 1815.