9 How cesses, stents, and fees were rax'd, The news o' princes, dukes, and earls, POEM ON PASTORAL POETRY. HAIL Poesie! thou Nymph reserv'd! 'Mang heaps o' clavers; And och o'er aft thy joes hae starv'd, Mid a' thy favours! Say, Lassie, why thy train amang, And sock or buskin skelp alang To death or marriage ; Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang But wi' miscarriage? In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives; Wee Pope, the knurlin, till him rives Horatian fame; In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives Even Sappho's flame. But thee, Theocritus, wha matches? I pass by hunders, nameless wretches, That ape their betters. In this braw age o' wit and lear, Will nane the Shepherd's whistle mair Blaw sweetly in its native air And rural grace; And wi' the far-fam'd Grecian, share A rival place? Yes! there is ane; a Scottish callan! A chiel sae clever; The teeth o' Time may gnaw Tamtallan, But thou's for ever. Thou paints auld nature to the nines, In thy sweet Caledonian lines; Nae gowden stream thro' myrtles twines, Where Philomel, While nightly breezes sweep the vines, Her griefs will tell! In gowany glens thy burnie strays, Wi' hawthorns gray, Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays Thy rural loves are nature's sel; Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell; That charm that can the strongest quell, ON THE BATTLE OF SHERIFF-MUIR, BETWEEN THE DUKE OF ARGYLE AND THE EARL 'O CAM ye here the fight to shun, And did the battle see, man?' I saw the battle, sair and tough, F The red-coat lads wi' black cockades To meet them were na slaw, man; They rush'd and push'd, and blude outgush'd, The great Argyle led on his files, I wat they glanced twenty miles: They hack'd and hash'd, while broadswords clash'd, But had you seen the philibegs, And skyrin tartan trews, man, When in the teeth they dar'd our whigs, O how deil Tam can that be true? The chase gaed frae the north, man: 'I saw myself, they did pursue The horseman back to Forth, man; And at Dumblane, in my ain sight, They took the brig wi' a' their might, And straught to Stirling wing'd their flight; But, cursed lot! the gates were shut, My sister Kate cam up the gate She swore she saw some rebels run They've lost some gallant gentlemen, Or fallen in whiggish hands, man: And whigs to hell did flee, man. SKETCH-NEW YEAR'S DAY. TO MRS. DUNLOP. THIS day, Time winds the' exhausted chain, |