The frugal Wife, garrulous, will tell,

How 'was a towmond auld, fin Lint was i' the bell.
The chearfu' Supper done, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The Sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-Bible, ance his Father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid afide,

His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in ZION glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And let us worship GOD!' he fays with folemn air.
They chant their artless notes in fimple guife;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise,
Or plantive Martyrs, worthy of the name;
Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of SCOTIA's holy lays:
Compar'd with thefe, Italian trills are tame;

The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise; Nae unifon hae they, with our CREATOR's praife. The priest-like Father reads the facred page, How Abram was the Friend of GOD on high; Or, Mofes bade eternal warfare wage,

With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal Bard did groaning lye, Beneath the ftroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Ifaiah's wild, feraphic fire; Or other Holy Seers that tune the facred lyre.

Perhaps

Perhaps the Christian Volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How HE, who bore in heaven the fecond name,
Had not on Earth whereon to lay His head :
How His first followers and fervants fped;
The Precepts fage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the fun a mighty angel stand;

And heard great Bab'len's doom pronounc'd by Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down to HEAVEN's ETERNAL KING,

The Saint, the Father, and the Hufband prays: Hope fprings exulting on triumphant wing,'* That thus they all fhall meet in future days:] There, ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to figh, or fhed the bitter tear, Together hymning their CREATOR's praise, In fuch fociety, yet ftill more dear;

While circling Time moves round in an eternal - sphere.

Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method, and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart!
The POWER, incens'd, the Pageant will defert,
The pompous ftrain, the facredotal stole;
But haply, in fome Cottage far apart.

May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the Soul; And in His Book of Life the Inmates poor enroll.

Pone's Windfor Foreft.

Then

Then homeward all take off their fev'ral way;
The youngling Cottagers retire to reft:
The Parent-pair their fecret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That HE who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
Would, in the way His Wifdom fees the best,

For them and for their little ones provide;

But chiefly, in their hearts with Grace divine prefide. From fcenes like thefe, old SCOTIA's grandeur fprings,

That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 'An honeft man's the noble work of GOD?' And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road,

The Cottage leaves the Palace far behind: What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load, Difguifing oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of Hell, in wickednefs refin'd! O SCOTIA! my dear, my native foil! For whom my warmest wish to hevaen is fent! Long may thy hardy fons of ruftic toil, [tent! Be bleft with health, and peace, and fweet conAnd O may Heaven their fimple lives prevent From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,

A virtuous Populace may rife the while, [ISLE. And ftand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd O THOU! who pour'd the Patriotic tide, [heart; That ftream'd thro' great, unhappy WALLACE'

Who dar'd to, nobly, ftem tyrannic pride,
Or nobly die, the fecond glorious part:
(The Patriot's GOD, peculiarly thou art,
His friend, infpirer, guardian and reward!)
O never, never SCOTIA's realm defert,

But ftill the Patriot, and the Patrist Bard,
In bright fucceffion raife, her Ornament and Guard!·

A

TO

S E,

MOU

On turning her up in her Neft, with the Plough,

November, 1785.

EE, fleeket, cowran, tim'rous beaftie,
O, what a panic's in thy breaftie!

WEE,

Thou need na start away fae hafty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an' chafe thee,

Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly forry Man's dominion Has broken Nature's focial union,

An' justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee ftartle,

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,

An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; What then; poor beaftie, thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave

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'S a fma' request:

I'll get a bleffin wi' the lave,

An' never miss't!

Thy wee-bit houfie, too, in ruin!
It's filly wa's the win's are ftrewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new anc,
O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds enfuin,

Baith fnell an' keen !

Thou faw the fields laid bare an' waft, weary Winter comin fast,

An'

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel coulter pait

Out thro' thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibbie,
Has coft thee monie a weary nibble !
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the Winter's fleety dribble,

An' cranreuch cauld!

But Moufie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving forefight may be vain :
The beft laid fchemes o' Mice an' Men,

Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!
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