Page images
PDF
EPUB

TO RUIN.

.

ALL hail! inexorable lord!

At whose destruction-breathing word,
The mightiest empires fall!
Thy cruel, woe-delighted train,
The ministers of grief and pain,
A sullen welcome, all!
With stern-resolv'd, despairing eye,

I see each aimed dart;
For one has cut my dearest tie,
And quivers in my heart.

Then low'ring and pouring,

The storm no more I dread

d;

Though thick'ning and black'ning,

Round

my devoted head.

II.

And thou grim pow'r, by life abhorr'd,

While life a pleasure can afford,
Oh! hear a wretch's prayer!
No more I shrink appall'd, afraid;
I court, I beg thy friendly aid,

To close this scene of care!

When shall my soul, in silent peace,
Resign life's joyless day;

My weary heart its throbbings cease,
Cold mould'ring in the clay?

No fear more, no tear more,

To stain my lifeless face;
Enclasped, and grasped

Within thy cold embrace!

Burns seems to have glanced into futurity with a prophetic eye images of misery and woe darkened the distant vista: and when he looked back on his career he saw little to console him.—“ I have been, this morning," he observes, taking a peep through, as Young finely says, The dark postern of time long elapsed.' 'Twas a rueful prospect ! What a tissue of thoughtlessness, weakness, and folly! My life reminded me of a ruined temple. What strength, what proportion, in some parts ! What unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruins in others! I kneeled down before the Father of Mercies and said :'Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.' I rose, eased and strengthened." The present fragment seems to have been composed when his farming speculations failed-one on whom he had set his heart had deserted him-and " Hungry Ruin had him in the wind."

ΤΟ

JOHN GOUDIE OF KILMARNOCK,

ON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS ESSAYS.

O GOUDIE! terror of the Whigs,
Dread of black coats and rev'rend wigs,
Sour Bigotry, on her last legs,

Girnin', looks back,

Wishin' the ten Egyptian plagues

Wad seize you quick.

Poor gapin', glowrin' Superstition,
Waes me! she's in a sad condition;

Fie! bring Black Jock, her state physician,
To see her w-t-r.

Alas! there's ground o' great suspicion

She'll ne'er get better.

Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple,
But now she's got an unco ripple;
Haste, gie her name up i' the chapel,
Nigh unto death;

See, how she fetches at the thrapple,

An' gasps for breath.

Enthusiasm's past redemption,

Gaen in a galloping consumption,

Not a' the quacks, wi' a' their gumption,

Will ever mend her.

Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption

Death soon will end her.

'Tis you and Taylor* are the chief,
Wha are to blame for this mischief,
But gin the Lord's ain focks gat leave,

A toom tar-barrel,

An' twa red peats wad send relief,

An' end the quarrel.

The Essays of John Goudie are all but forgotten; not so the burning commentary of the Bard. To the English admirers of Burns it is perhaps necessary to say that the

[ocr errors]

Whigs," of whom the Essayist was the terror, were the Old Light portion of the Presbyterian kirk; men, ceremonious in their observances, austere in their conversation, and who accounted themselves Calvinists to the letter." These people inculcate," says a reverend biographer," that the greatest sinner is the greatest favourite of heaven-that a reformed bawd is more acceptable to the Almighty than a pure virgin who has hardly ever transgressed, even in thought-that the lost sheep alone will be saved, and that the ninety-and-nine out of

* Dr. Taylor, of Norwich.

the hundred will be left in the wilderness to perish without mercy-that the Saviour of the world loves the elect, not from any lovely qualities which they possess, for they are hateful in his sight-but he loves them, because he loves them.' Such are the sentiments which are breathed by those who are denominated high Calvinists, and from which the soul of a poet who loves mankind, and who has not studied the system in all its bearings, recoils with horror." Burns- against whom a hue and cry of heresy was raised-has said nothing so ferocious as this "bold commentator." The picture which he has painted is as unjust as it is indecorous.

Death has been dealing-to use the language of the old bard—with all the clergymen of the west whom the poet lampooned or praised, save one, and that one is MacKinlay, one of the characters in the "Ordination." He is a good and venerable man: was the friend, of Auld, minister of Mauchline, and it was his practice, when he called at his reverend brother's house, to shake hands, kneel down and unite in asking a blessing from above on their ministry, and on the flocks committed to their charge. There is something apostolical or primitive in this.

« PreviousContinue »