Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns Part 99

Here is the glen, and here the bower All underneath the birchen shade; The village-bell has told the hour, O what can stay my lovely maid?

'Tis not Maria's whispering call; 'Tis but the balmy breathing gale, Mixt with some warbler's dying fall, The dewy star of eve to hail.

It is Maria's voice I hear; So calls the woodlark in the grove, His little, faithful mate to cheer; At once 'tis music and 'tis love.

And art thou come! and art thou true!

O welcome dear to love and me!

And let us all our vows renew, Along the flowery banks of Cree.

Monody

On a lady famed for her Caprice.

How cold is that bosom which folly once fired, How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten'd; How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired, How dull is that ear which to flatt'ry so listen'd!

If sorrow and anguish their exit await, From friends.h.i.+p and dearest affection remov'd; How doubly severer, Maria, thy fate, Thou diedst unwept, as thou livedst unlov'd.

Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you; So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear: But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true, And flowers let us cull for Maria's cold bier.

We'll search through the garden for each silly flower, We'll roam thro' the forest for each idle weed; But chiefly the nettle, so typical, shower, For none e'er approach'd her but rued the rash deed.

We'll sculpture the marble, we'll measure the lay; Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre; There keen Indignation shall dart on his prey, Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire.

The Epitaph

Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect, What once was a b.u.t.terfly, gay in life's beam: Want only of wisdom denied her respect, Want only of goodness denied her esteem.

Pinned To Mrs. Walter Riddell's Carriage

If you rattle along like your Mistress' tongue, Your speed will outrival the dart; But a fly for your load, you'll break down on the road, If your stuff be as rotten's her heart.

Epitaph For Mr. Walter Riddell

Sic a reptile was Wat, sic a miscreant slave, That the worms ev'n d.a.m.n'd him when laid in his grave; "In his flesh there's a famine," a starved reptile cries, "And his heart is rank poison!" another replies.

Epistle From Esopus To Maria

From those drear solitudes and frowsy cells, Where Infamy with sad Repentance dwells; Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast, And deal from iron hands the spare repast; Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin, Blush at the curious stranger peeping in; Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar, Resolve to drink, nay, half, to wh.o.r.e, no more; Where tiny thieves not destin'd yet to swing, Beat hemp for others, riper for the string: From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date, To tell Maria her Esopus' fate.

"Alas! I feel I am no actor here!"

'Tis real hangmen real scourges bear!

Prepare Maria, for a horrid tale Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale; Will make thy hair, tho' erst from gipsy poll'd, By barber woven, and by barber sold, Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care, Like h.o.a.ry bristles to erect and stare.

The hero of the mimic scene, no more I start in Hamlet, in Oth.e.l.lo roar; Or, haughty Chieftain, 'mid the din of arms In Highland Bonnet, woo Malvina's charms; While sans-culottes stoop up the mountain high, And steal from me Maria's prying eye.

Blest Highland bonnet! once my proudest dress, Now prouder still, Maria's temples press; I see her wave thy towering plumes afar, And call each c.o.xcomb to the wordy war: I see her face the first of Ireland's sons, And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze; The crafty Colonel leaves the tartan'd lines, For other wars, where he a hero s.h.i.+nes: The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred, Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head, Comes 'mid a string of c.o.xcombs, to display That veni, vidi, vici, is his way: The shrinking Bard adown the alley skulks, And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich hulks: Though there, his heresies in Church and State Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate: Still she undaunted reels and rattles on, And dares the public like a noontide sun.

What scandal called Maria's jaunty stagger The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger?

Whose spleen (e'en worse than Burns' venom, when He dips in gall unmix'd his eager pen, And pours his vengeance in the burning line,)-- Who christen'd thus Maria's lyre-divine The idiot strum of Vanity bemus'd, And even the abuse of Poesy abus'd?-- Who called her verse a Parish Workhouse, made For motley foundling Fancies, stolen or strayed?

A Workhouse! ah, that sound awakes my woes, And pillows on the thorn my rack'd repose!

In durance vile here must I wake and weep, And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep; That straw where many a rogue has lain of yore, And vermin'd gipsies litter'd heretofore.

Why, Lonsdale, thus thy wrath on vagrants pour?

Must earth no rascal save thyself endure?

Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell, And make a vast monopoly of h.e.l.l?

Thou know'st the Virtues cannot hate thee worse; The Vices also, must they club their curse?

Or must no tiny sin to others fall, Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all?

Maria, send me too thy griefs and cares; In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares.

As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls, Who on my fair one Satire's vengeance hurls-- Who calls thee, pert, affected, vain coquette, A wit in folly, and a fool in wit!

Who says that fool alone is not thy due, And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true!

Our force united on thy foes we'll turn, And dare the war with all of woman born: For who can write and speak as thou and I?

My periods that deciphering defy, And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply!

Epitaph On A Noted c.o.xcomb

Capt. Wm. Roddirk, of Corbiston.

Light lay the earth on Billy's breast, His chicken heart so tender; But build a castle on his head, His scull will prop it under.

On Capt. Lascelles

When Lascelles thought fit from this world to depart, Some friends warmly thought of embalming his heart; A bystander whispers--"Pray don't make so much o't, The subject is poison, no reptile will touch it."

On Wm. Graham, Esq., Of Mossknowe