COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT

Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben*;
A strappin youth, he takes the mother's eye;
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en;

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,
But blate an' laithfu', scarce can weel behave;
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy
What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave,
Weel-pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.d

O happy love! where love like this is found:
O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I've paced much this weary, mortal round,

And sage experience bids me this declare,

"If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spareOne cordial in this melancholy vale,

'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair

In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale,

Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.'

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart,

A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!

That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth!

Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd?

Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child?

Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild?

But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food;

The sowp' their only hawkie does afford,

That, 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood:
The dame brings forth, in complimental mood,

To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fella;
And aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it guid:
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell

How 'twas a towmond' auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.

The cheerfu' 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 aside,
His lyart haffetsd 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 says with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise,
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee's' wild-warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive 'Martyrs,' worthy of the name;
Or noble 'Elgin' beets' the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:"

Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;

Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

well-saved cheese, strong. a hoary temples.

b twelve-month.
• selects

• flax was in flower. f feeds.

COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay His head: How His first followers and servants sped; The precepts sage they wrote to many a land: How he, who lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,

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

Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,'
That thus they all shall meet in future days,
There, ever bask in uncreated rays, -
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still 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 desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ;

But haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well-pleas'd, the language of the soul;
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:

The parent-pair their secret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,

1 Pope's "Windsor Forest."-R.B.

And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,

Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide;

But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
"An honest man's the noblest 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,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd!

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! And O may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!

Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,

A virtuous populace may rise the while,

And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd isle.

O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide,

That stream'd thro' great unhappy Wallace' heart, Who dar'd to nobly stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die, the second glorious part: (The patriot's God peculiarly thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward O never, never Scotia's realm desert; But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard

In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

ADDRESS TO THE deil

Address to the Deil.1

"O Prince O chief of many throned pow'rs
That led th' embattled seraphim to war-'

"

MILTON.

O THOU! whatever title suit thee—
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie,

Clos'd under hatches,
Spairges about the brunstane cootie,b
To scaud

poor wretches!

Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An' let poor damned bodies be;
I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie,

Ev'n to a deil,

To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me,
An' hear us squeel!

Great is thy pow'r an' great thy fame;
Far ken'd an' noted is thy name;
An' tho' yon lowin' heuch'sd thy hame,
Thou travels far;

An' faith! thou's neither lage nor lame,
Nor blate, nor scaur.*

Whiles, ranging like a roarin lion,

For prey, a' holes and corners tryin;

Whiles, on the strong-wing'd tempest flyin,

Tirling the kirks;

Whiles, in the human bosom pryin,

⚫ spatters.

Unseen thou lurks.

b wooden dish.
f bashful nor timid.

• slow.
1 The date is fixed by the ciroum-
stance, as Mr Scott Douglas notes, that,
in the seventh verse from the end,
"bonie Jean" was celebrated, in the
original draught. But the affair with
Miss Armour ceased to run straight,
so the name was expunged and the

stanza was altered. This was early in 1786. The Mason's Word, in stanza fourteenth, is very solemnly dealt with by the Rev. Robert Kirk of Aberfoyle, (later carried away by the Fairies,) in his Secret Commonwealth.