Or mak our Bardie, dowie, wear
The mournin weed:

He's lost a friend and neibor dear,
In Mailie dead.

Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him;
A lang half-mile she could descry him;
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She ran wi' speed:

A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him,
Than Mailie dead.

I wat she was a sheep o' sense,
An' could behave hersel wi' mense;
I'll say't, she never brak a fence,
Thro' thievish greed.

Our Bardie, lanely, keeps the spence
Sin' Mailie's dead.

Or, if he wanders up the howe
Her living image in her yowe

Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe,
For bits o' bread;

An' down the briny pearls rowe

For Mailie dead.

K

She was nae get o' moorland tips,
Wi' tawted ket, an' hairy hips;

For her forbears were brought in ships,
Frae yont the Tweed:

A bonier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips
Than Mailie's dead.

Wae worth the man wha first did shape
That vile, wanchancie thing-a rape!
It maks guid fellows grin an' gape,
Wi' chokin dread;

An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape,
For Mailie dead.

O, a' ye Bards on bonie Doon!

An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune!
Come, join the melancholious croon
O' Robin's reed!

His heart will never get aboon!
His Mailie's dead!

A WINTER NIGHT

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm!
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you,
From seasons such as these?

-SHAKESPEARE

WHEN biting Boreas, fell and doure,
Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r;
When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r,
Far south the lift,

Dim-dark'ning thro' the flaky show'r,
Or whirling drift:

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labor sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi' snawy wreeths up-choked,

Wild-eddying swirl,

Or thro' the mining outlet bocked,

Down headlong hurl.

List'ning, the doors an' winnocks rattle,

I thought me on the ourie cattle,

Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle

O' winter war,

And thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle,
Beneath a scar.

Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing!
That, in the merry months o' spring,
Delighted me to hear thee sing,

What comes o' thee?

Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing
An' close thy e'e?

Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd,
Lone from your savage homes exil'd,
The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoil'd
My heart forgets,

While pityless 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 heav'n-illumin'd man on brother man bestows!

"See stern Oppression's iron grip,

Or mad Ambition's gory hand, Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip Woe, want, and murder o'er a land!

Ev'n in the peaceful rural vale,

Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, How pamper'd Luxury, Flatt'ry 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 glitt'ring show,

A creature of another kind,

Some coarser substance, unrefin'd,

Plac'd for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below.

"Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe,

With lordly Honor's lofty brow,

The pow'rs you proudly own?

Is there, beneath Love's noble name,