BIRTHDAY ODE Sae I'll rejoice the lee-lang day, Birthday Ode for 31st December 1787.1 AFAR the illustrious Exile roams, Whom kingdoms on this day should hail; On transient pity's bounty fed, Haunted by busy memory's bitter tale! Who would his sorrows share. False flatterer, Hope, away ! Nor think to lure us as in days of yore: Ye honored, mighty Dead, Who nobly perished in the glorious cause, (What breast of northern ice but warms!) 1 This piece has a melancholy interest. The greatest of Scottish poets wrote the last Birthday Ode for the last hope of the Stuart line. In a month the king was dead, and only "a barren stock," the Cardinal Duke of York, survived. Poor as the verses are, for the most part, the praise of "Great Dundee " severs Burns from the inheritors of Covenanting and Cameronian traditions, and ranges him with Scott. " The text is from the Glenriddell MS. Currie printed only the second paragraph, as far as 'So Vengeance. where political considerations stopped him. To bold BALMERINO's undying name, Whose soul of fire, lighted at Heaven's high flame, Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim: Not unrevenged your fate shall lie, It only lags, the fatal hour, Your blood shall, with incessant cry, With doubling speed and gathering force, Till deep it, crushing, whelms the cottage in the vale; So Vengeance' arm, ensanguin'd, strong, Shall with resistless might assail, Usurping Brunswick's pride shall lay, And STEWART's wrongs and yours, with tenfold weight repay. PERDITION, baleful child of night! Lead on the unmuzzled hounds of hell, The blood-notes of the chase! Where each avenging hour still ushers in a worse! Their utter ruin bring, The base apostates to their GOD, DEATH OF ROBERT DUNDAS On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq., Late Lord President of the Court of Session.1 LONE on the bleaky hills the straying flocks Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves, O heavy loss, thy country ill could bear! Wrongs, injuries, from many a darksome den, 1 Burns's letter to Alexander Cunningham gives the history of this elegy. He does not reflect that the moment of a father's death is likely to find a son occupied with so many duties that a mortuary poem may escape notice and reply. Carlyle's unanswered letter to Scott is a parallel and equally intelligible grievance, though probably not felt with an equal passion of bitterness. View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, As guileful Fraud points out the erring way: The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong: Ye dark waste hills, ye brown unsightly plains, Sylvander to Clarinda.1 Extempore Reply to Verses addressed to the Author by a Lady, under the signature of "Clarinda." WHEN dear Clarinda, matchless fair, First struck Sylvander's raptur'd view, Love, from Clarinda's heavenly eyes, That heart, already more than lost, 1 Clarinda (Mrs M'Lehose) was not a widow, but a grass-widow, and Burns was, legally, a married man. Her story may be seen in the Introduction. The verses referred to are headed "On Burns saying he 'had nothing else to do.' SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA His pangs the Bard refused to own, That heart, where motley follies blend, The Muse his ready quill employed, "Send word by Charles how you do!" The chill behest disarm'd his muse, But by those hopes I have above! O could the Fates but name the price If human art and power could do! Then take, Clarinda, friendship's hand, SYLVANDER. |