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THE DEPARTED REGENCY BILL

By a generous Prince's wrongs,
By a Senate's strife of tongues,
By a Premier's sullen pride,
Louring on the changing tide;
By dread Thurlow's powers to awe
Rhetoric, blasphemy and law;
By the turbulent ocean-
A Nation's commotion,
By the harlot-caresses
Of borough addresses,
By days few and evil,
(Thy portion, poor devil!)
By Power, Wealth, and Show,
(The Gods by men adored,)
By nameless Poverty,

(Their hell abhorred,)

By all they hope, by all they fear,
Hear! and Appear!

Stare not on me, thou ghastly Power!
Nor, grim with chained defiance, lour:
No Babel-structure would I build

Where, order exil'd from his native sway,
Confusion may the REGENT-Sceptre wield,
While all would rule and none obey:
Go, to the world of man relate
The story of thy sad, eventful fate;
And call presumptuous Hope to hear
And bid him check his blind career;
And tell the sore-prest sons of Care,
Never, never to despair!

Paint Charles's speed on wings of fire,
The object of his fond desire,
Beyond his boldest hopes, at hand:

Paint all the triumph of the Portland Band;
Mark how they lift the joy-exulting voice,
And how their num'rous creditors rejoice;
But just as hopes to warm enjoyment rise,
Cry CONVALESCENCE! and the vision flies.

Then next pourtray a dark'ning twilight gloom,
Eclipsing sad a gay, rejoicing morn,

While proud Ambition to th' untimely tomb
By gnashing, grim, despairing fiends is borne:
Paint ruin, in the shape of high D[undas]
Gaping with giddy terror o'er the brow;

In vain he struggles, the fates behind him press,
And clam'rous hell yawns for her prey below:
How fallen That, whose pride late scaled the skies!
And This, like Lucifer, no more to rise!

Again pronounce the powerful word;

See Day, triumphant from the night, restored.

Then know this truth, ye Sons of Men!
(Thus ends thy moral tale,)

Your darkest terrors may be vain,

Your brightest hopes may fail.

Epistle to James Tennant of Glenconner.1

AULD Comrade dear, and brither sinner,
How's a' the folk about Glenconner?
How do you this blae eastlina wind,
That's like to blaw a body blind?
For me, my faculties are frozen,
My dearest member nearly dozen'd.b
I've sent you here, by Johnie Simson,
Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on;
Smith, wi' his sympathetic feeling,
An' Reid, to common sense appealing.
Philosophers have fought and wrangled,
An' meikle Greek an' Latin mangled,
Till wi' their logic-jargon tir'd,
And in the depth of science mir'd,
To common sense they now appeal,
What wives and wabsters see and feel.

blue eastern.

b benumbed.

1 Mr Tennant was the brother of Charles Tennant, to whom Glasgow

weavers.

owes the form and fumes of St Rollox chimney.

EPISTLE TO JAMES TENNANT

I pray

But, hark ye, friend! I charge you strictly,
Peruse them, an' return them quickly :
For now I'm grown sae cursed doucea
and ponder butt the house";
My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin,
Perusing Bunyan, Brown an' Boston,
Till by an' by, if I haud on,
I'll grunt a real gospel groan :
Already I begin to try it,

To cast my e'en up like a pyet,
When by the gun she tumbles o'er
Flutt'ring an' gasping in her gore:
Sae shortly you shall see me bright,
A burning an' a shining light.

My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen,
The ace an' waled of honest men :
When bending down wi' auld grey hairs
Beneath the load of years and cares,
May He who made him still support him,
An' views beyond the grave comfort him;
His worthy fam❜ly far and near,

God bless them a' wi' grace and gear!

e

My auld schoolfellow, preacher Willie,
The manly tar, my mason-billie,
And Auchenbay, I wish him joy,
If he's a parent, lass or boy,

May he be dad, and Meg the mither,
Just five-and-forty years thegither!
And no forgetting wabster' Charlie,
I'm tauld he offers very fairly.

An' Lord, remember singing Sannock,
Wi' hale breeks, saxpence, an' a bannock!
And next, my auld acquaintance, Nancy,
Since she is fitted to her fancy,

An' her kind stars hae airted till her

A guid chiel wi' a pickle siller.i

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My kindest, best respects, I sen' it,
To cousin Kate, an' sister Janet :

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Tell them, frae me, wi' chiels be cautious,
For, faith, they'll aiblins fin' them fashious";
To grant a heart is fairly civil,

But to grant a maidenhead's the devil.
An' lastly, Jamie, for yoursel,

May guardian angels tak a spell,

An' steer you seven miles south o' hell:
But first, before you see heaven's glory,
May ye get mony a merry story,
Mony a laugh, and mony a drink,
And aye eneugh o' needfu' clink.c

Now fare ye weel, an' joy be wi' you:
For my sake, this I beg it o' you,
Assist poor Simson a' ye can,
Ye'll fin' him just an honest man;

Sae I conclude, and quat my chanter,d
Your's, saint or sinner,

ROB THE RANTER.

A New Psalm for the Chapel of

Kilmarnock,

On the Thanksgiving-Day for His Majesty's Recovery.1

⚫ perhaps.

O SING a new song to the Lord,

Make, all and every one,

A joyful noise, even for the king
His restoration,

The sons of Belial in the land

Did set their heads together;

Come, let us sweep them off, said they,
Like an o'erflowing river.

b troublesome.

1 As George III. was recovering from insanity, Burns wrote this example of

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A NEW PSALM

They set their heads together, I say,
They set their heads together;
On right, on left, on every hand,
We saw none to deliver.

Thou madest strong two chosen ones.
To quell the Wicked's pride;
That Young Man, great in Issachar,
The burden-bearing tribe.

And him, among the Princes, chief
In our Jerusalem,

The judge that's mighty in thy law,
The man that fears thy name.

Yet they, even they, with all their strength,
Began to faint and fail:

Even as two howling, ravenous wolves
To dogs do turn their tail.

Th' ungodly o'er the just prevail'd,
For so thou hadst appointed;

That thou might'st greater glory give
Unto thine own anointed.

And now thou hast restored our State,
Pity our Kirk also;

For she by tribulations

Is now brought very low.

Consume that high-place, Patronage,
From off thy holy hill;

And in thy fury burn the book—
Even of that man M'Gill.1

1 Dr William M'Gill of Ayr, whose Practical Essay on the Death of Jesus Christ led to a charge of heresy against

him. Burns took up his cause in The Kirk of Scotland's Alarm (p. 393).

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