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"Or when the deep green-mantled earth
Warm cherish'd ev'ry flow'rets birth,

And joy and music pouring forth
In ev'ry grove,

I saw thee eye the general mirth
With boundless love.

"When ripen'd fields, and azure skies, Called forth the reaper's rustling noise, I saw thee leave their evening joys,

And lonely stalk,

To vent thy bosom's swelling rise

In pensive walk.

"When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong, Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, Those accents, grateful to thy tongue,

Th' adored Name,

in

I taught thee how to pour song,

To soothe thy flame.

"I saw thy pulse's maddening play, Wild send thee pleasure's devious way, Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray,

By passion driven;

But yet the light that led astray

Was light from Heaven.

"I taught thy manners-painting strains, The loves, the ways of simple swains, Till now, o'er all my wide domains

Thy fame extends;

And some, the pride of Coila's plains,
Become thy friends.

“Thou canst not learn, nor can I show, To paint with Thomson's landscape-glow; Or wake the bosom-melting throe,

With Shenstone's art;

Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow
Warm on the heart.

"Yet, all beneath the unrivall'd rose, The lowly daisy sweetly blows;

Tho' large the forest's monarch throws

Yet green

His army shade,

the juicy hawthorn grows,

Adown the glade.

“Then never murmur nor repine;

Strive in thy humble sphere to shine;

And, trust me, not Potosi's mine,

Nor king's regard,

Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,

A rustic bard.

"To give my counsels all in one,
Thy tuneful flame still careful fan ;
Preserve the dignity of man,

With soul erect;

And trust, the universal plan

Will all protect.

"And wear thou this"-she solemn said,
And bound the holly round my head :
The polish'd leaves, and berries red,

Did rustling play;

And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.

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Few have been so hardy as to find fault with this poem; even Jeffrey, in his depreciating estimate of the man and the poet, says,-" The only pieces that can be classed under the head of pure fiction, are the Brigs of Ayr,' and The Vision.' In the last there are some vigorous and striking lines." What is pure fiction? many of the poems of Burns have an equal right with "The Vision" to be classed with works of fiction.

Much of the man is in all Burns' productions; in the history of this poem we may read some of the vicissitudes of his love and friendship. In the original manuscript, the verse which descends into particulars about Coila, claimed for her a leg as straight, and tight, and tapering as that of Jean Armour; the destruction of the marriage

lines brought a blight on his affection-he dethroned her in his Kilmarnock edition, and raised up another in her stead :

"Down flowed her robe, a tartan sheen,

Till half a leg was scrimply seen,

And such a leg! my Bess, I ween,

Could only peer it;

Sae straught, sae taper, tight and clean,
Nane else came near it.

Old affection triumphed by the time the Edinburgh edition was printed, and Jean was with pomp restored. Having extended his friendships after the first edition, he enlarged the robe of Coila, and emblazoned it with the history of the Wallaces who fought and were victorious at Stirling and Sark. This heroic race were not mentioned before. He also admitted others of a later day to the honours of the mantle; and gave Coila more than she could well bear." Burns," says Carlyle, 46 is not more distinguished by the clearness than by the impetuous force of his conceptions. Of his strength-the piercing emphasis with which he thought, may give an humble, but the readiest proof. Who ever uttered sharper sayings than his? words more memorable by their burning vehemence-by their cool vigour and their laconic pith?"

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HALLOWEEN.*

[The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood; but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added, to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such should honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlightened in our own.]

"Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
The simple pleasures of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art.”

GOLDSMITH.

UPON that night, when fairies light,
On Cassilis Downans† dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;

* Is thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other mischief making beings are all abroad on their baneful, midnight errands; particularly those aérial people, the Fairies, are said on that night to hold a grand anniversary.

+ Certain little, romantic, rocky, green hills, in the neighbourhood of the ancient seat of the Earls of Cassilis.

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