Page images
PDF
EPUB

VI.

Ye winged hours that o'er us past,
Enraptur'd more, the more enjoy'd,
Your dear remembrance in my breast,

My fondly-treasur'd thoughts employ'd.
That breast, how dreary now, and void,
For her too scanty once of room!
Ev'n ev'ry ray of hope destroy'd,
And not a wish to gild the gloom!

VII.

The morn that warns th' approaching day, Awakes me up to toil and woe:

I see the hours in long array,

That I must suffer, lingering, slow.
Full many a pang, and many a throe,
Keen recollection's direful train,

Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low,
Shall kiss the distant, western main.

VIII.

And when my nightly couch I try,
Sore-harass'd out with care and grief,
My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye,
Keep watchings with the nightly thief:
Or if I slumber, fancy, chief,

Reigns haggard-wild, in sore affright: Ev'n day, all-bitter, brings relief,

From such a horror-breathing night.

IX.

O! thou bright queen, who o'er th' expanse,
Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway!
Oft has thy silent-marking glance

Observ'd us, fondly-wand'ring, stray!
The time, unheeded, sped away,

While love's luxurious pulse beat high,
Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray,

To mark the mutual kindling eye.

X.

Oh! scenes in strong remembrance set!

Scenes never, never to return!
Scenes, if in stupor I forget,

Again I feel, again I burn!

From ev'ry joy and pleasure torn,
Life's weary vale I'll wander thro';
And hopeless, comfortless, I'll mourn
A faithless woman's broken vow.

The history of this touching poem has been related by several writers: Burns himself says to Dr. Moore, "This was a most melancholy affair, which I cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the principal qualifications for a place among those who have lost the chart and mistaken the reckoning of rationality. I gave up my part of my farm to my brother-in truth, it was only nominally mine-and made what little preparation was in my power for

Jamaica. As soon as I was master of nine guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid zone, I took a steerage passage in the first ship that was to sail from the Clyde; for

'Hungry ruin had me in the wind.'

I had for some days been skulking from covert to covert under all the terrors of a jail: as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the merciless pack of the law at my heels."

[ocr errors]

On the same subject Burns thus writes to John Richmond, then in Edinburgh, on the 30th of July, 1786 :'My hour is now come: you and I will never meet in Britain more: 1 have orders within three weeks at farthest to repair on board the Nancy, Captain Smith, from Clyde to Jamaica, and to call at Antigua. This, except to our friend James Smith, whom God long preserve, is a secret about Mauchline. Would you believe it: a warrant has been got to throw me into jail till I find security in an enormous sum! This they keep an entire secret, but I got it by a channel they little dream of, and I am wandering from one friend's house to another, and, like a true son of the gospel, 'have no where to lay my head.' I know you will pour an execration upon her head; but spare the poor ill-advised girl for my sake." It is next to needless to add, that all this alludes to the situation in which the Poet was then placed with Jean Armour: the friend, for the sad issue of whose "Amour" he lamented, was himself: and the pangs which he describes with such feeling were suffered by his own heart. He seems to have blamed Mrs. Armour most: and, certainly, in a letter now before me, has "spared no arrows.'

دو

DESPONDENCY,

AN ODE.

I.

OPPRESS'D with grief, oppress'd with care,

A burden more than I can bear,

I set me down and sigh :

O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
Dim-backward as I cast my view,
What sick'ning scenes appear!
What sorrows yet may pierce me thro',

Too justly I may fear!

Still caring, despairing,

Must be my bitter doom;
My woes here shall close ne'er

But with the closing tomb!

II.

Happy, ye sons of busy life,

Who, equal to the bustling strife,

No other view regard!

Ev'n when the wished end's deny'd,
Yet while the busy means are ply'd,
They bring their own reward:
Whilst I, a hope-abandon'd wight,
Unfitted with an aim,
Meet ev'ry sad returning night
And joyless morn the same;
You, bustling, and justling,
Forget each grief and pain;
I, listless, yet restless,

Find every prospect vain.

III.

How blest the solitary's lot,

Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot,

Within his humble cell,

The cavern wild with tangling roots, Sits o'er his newly-gather'd fruits,

Beside his crystal well!

Or, haply, to his ev'ning thought,

By unfrequented stream,

The ways of men are distant brought, A faint collected dream;

« PreviousContinue »