With steady aim, some Fortune chase;
Keen hope does ev'ry sinew brace;
Thro' fair, thro' foul, they urge the race,
An' seize the prey:

Then cannie, in some cozie place,

They close the day.

And others, like your humble servan',
Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin,

To right or left eternal swervin,

They zig-zag on;

Till, curst with age, obscure an' starvin,
They aften groan.

Alas! what bitter toil an' straining—
But truce with peevish, poor complaining!
Is fortune's fickle Luna waning?

E'n let her gang!

Beneath what light she has remaining,

Let's sing our sang.

My pen I here fling to the door,

And kneel, ye Pow'rs! and warm implore, "Tho' I should wander Terra o'er,

In all her climes,

Grant me but this, I ask no more,

Aye rowth o' rhymes.

"Gie dreepin roasts to countra lairds,

Till icicles hing frae their beards;
Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guards,

And maids of honour;

An' yill an' whisky gie to cairds,

Until they sconner.

"A title, Dempster1 merits it;

A garter gie to Willie Pitt;

Gie wealth to some be-ledger'd cit,

In cent. per cent.;

But give me real, sterling wit,

And I'm content.

1 George Dempster of Dunnichen, M.P.

"While ye are pleas'd to keep me hale, I'll sit down o'er my scanty meal, Be't water-brose or muslin-kail,

Wi' cheerfu' face,

As lang's the Muses dinna fail

To say the grace."

An anxious e'e I never throws
Behint my lug, or by my nose;
I jouk beneath Misfortune's blows
As weel's I may;

Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose,
I rhyme away.

O ye douce folk that live by rule, Grave, tideless-blooded, calm an' cool, Compar'd wi' you-O fool! fool! fool! How much unlike! Your hearts are just a standing pool, Your lives, a dyke!

Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye're wise; Nae ferly tho' ye do despise

The hairum-scairum, ram-stam boys,

The rattling squad:

I see ye upward cast your eyes—

Ye ken the road!

Whilst I-but I shall haud me there, Wi' you I'll scarce gang ony where— Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair,

But quat my sang,

Content wi' you to mak a pair.

Whare'er I

gang.

THE VISION

DUAN FIRST1

THE Sun had clos'd the winter day,
The curlers quat their roarin play,
And hunger'd maukin taen her way,
To kail-yards green,

While faithless snaws ilk step betray
Whare she has been.

The thresher's weary flingin-tree,

The lee-lang day had tirèd me;

And when the day had clos'd his e’e,
Far i' the west,

Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie,

I gaed to rest.

There, lanely by the ingle-cheek,
I sat and ey'd the spewing reek,
That fill'd, wi' hoast-provoking smeek,
The auld clay biggin;
An' heard the restless rattons squeak
About the riggin.

All in this mottie, misty clime,
I backward mus'd on wasted time,
How I had spent my youthfu' prime,
An' done nae thing,
But stringing blethers up in rhyme,
For fools to sing.

Had I to guid advice but harkit,
I might, by this, hae led a market,
Or strutted in a bank and clarkit

My cash-account;

While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit.

Is a' th' amount.

1 Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See his Cath-Loda, vol. 2 of M'Pherson's translation.-R. B.

I started, mutt'ring, "blockhead! coof!"
And heav'd on high my waukit loof,
To swear by a' yon starry roof,

Or some rash aith,

That I henceforth wad be rhyme-proof

Till my last breath

When click! the string the snick did draw; An' jee! the door gaed to the wa';

An' by my ingle-lowe I saw,

Now bleezin bright,

A tight, outlandish hizzie, braw,

Come full in sight.

Ye need na doubt, I held my whisht;
The infant aith, half-form'd, was crusht
I glowr'd as eerie's I'd been dusht

In some wild glen;

When sweet, like honest Worth, she blusht, An' stepped ben.

Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs Were twisted, gracefu', round her brows; I took her for some Scottish Muse,

By that same token;

And come to stop those reckless vows,

Would soon been broken.

A "hair-brain'd, sentimental trace"

Was strongly markèd in her face;

A wildly-witty, rustic grace

Her

eye,

Shone full upon her;

ev'n turn'd on empty space,

Beam'd keen with honour.

Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen,
Till half a leg was scrimply seen;

An' such a leg! my bonie Jean

Could only peer it;

Sae straught, sae taper, tight an' clean

Nane else came near it.

Her mantle large, of greenish hue,
My gazing wonder chiefly drew:

Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw
A lustre grand;

And seem'd, to my astonish'd view,

A well-known land.

Here, rivers in the sea were lost;

There, mountains to the skies were toss't:
Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast,
With surging foam;

There, distant shone Art's lofty boast,

The lordly dome.

Here, Doon pour'd down his far-fetch'd floods;
There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds:

Auld hermit Ayr staw thro' his woods,
On to the shore;

And many a lesser torrent scuds,

With seeming roar.

Low, in a sandy valley spread,
An ancient borough rear'd her head;
Still, as in Scottish story read,

She boasts a race

To ev'ry nobler virtue bred,

And polish'd grace.2

By stately tow'r, or palace fair,

Or ruins pendent in the air,

Bold stems of heroes, here and there,

I could discern;

Some seem'd to muse, some seem'd to dare,

With feature stern.

My heart did glowing transport feel,

To see a race heroic3 wheel,

2 The seven stanzas following this were first printed in the Edinburgh edition, 1787. Other stanzas, never published by Burns himself, are given on p. 180.

3 The Wallaces.-R. B.