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A PRAYER

IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH.

O THOU unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear!

In whose dread presence, ere an hour,
Perhaps I must appear!

If I have wander'd in those paths
Of life I ought to shun;

As something, loudly, in my breast,
Remonstrates I have done;

Thou knows't that Thou hast formed me,
With passions wild and strong;
And list'ning to their witching voice

Has often led me wrong.

Where human weakness has come short,

Or frailty stept aside,

Do Thou, All-Good! for such thou art, In shades of darkness hide.

Where with intention I have err'd,
No other plea I have,

But, Thou art good; and goodness still

Delighteth to forgive.

This Prayer justifies the remarks of Wordsworth."We have rejected as false sometimes in the letter, many of the testimonies that others have borne against Burns:-but by his own hand-in words, the import of which cannot be mistaken-it has been recorded that the order of his life but faintly corresponded with the clearness of his views." In fits of despondency he looked darkly on the errors of his ways; and frailties, which to men of less sensibility, seemed venial, assumed hues which made him tremble. In these moods-and they were not unfrequent-indulgence at the table with his companions, profane wit, and trystings after twilight among the lasses of Kyle, grew into colossal enormities, and they pressed the harder on him because he felt that "" passions, wild and strong," were ever ready to sweep resolutions of amendment away.

STANZAS

ON THE SAME OCCASION.

WHY am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
Have I so found it full of pleasing charms?
Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between :
Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms:
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?

Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode ?
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;
I tremble to approach an angry God,

And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.

Fain would I say, “ Forgive my foul offence!"

Fain promise never more to disobey;

But, should my Author health again dispense,
Again I might desert fair virtue's way:
Again in folly's path might go astray;

Again exalt the brute and sink the man;
Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,

Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan? Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran?

O Thou, great Governor of all below!

If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,

Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,
Or still the tumult of the raging sea:
With that controlling pow'r assist ev'n me,
Those headlong furious passions to confine;
For all unfit I feel my pow'rs to be,

To rule their torrent in th'allowed line;
O, aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine !

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"The 'Prayer' and the Stanzas' were composed,' says Burns, “when faiuting fits and other alarming symptoms of a pleurisy or some other dangerous disarder, which indeed still threatens me, first put nature on the alarm." In another place he designates the Stanzas " Misgivings in the hour of despondency and prospect of death." Elsewhere he says in his Memoranda, "The grand end of human life is to cultivate an intercourse with that Being to whom we owe life with every enjoyment that renders life delightful.”

A WINTER NIGHT.

"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are
That bide the pelting of the pitiless storm!
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and window'd raggedness defend you,
From seasons such as these?"

SHAKSPEARE.

WHEN biting Boreas, fell and doure,
Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r;
When Phoebus gies a short-lived glow'r

Far south the lift,

Dim-darkening through the flaky show'r,
Or whirling drift:

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi' snawy wreeths up-choked,

Wild-eddying swirl,

Or through the mining outlet bocked,

Down headlong hurl.

Listening, the doors an' winnocks rattle,
I thought me on the ourie cattle,

Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle

O' winter war,

And through the drift, deep-lairing sprattle,

Beneath a scar.

Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing,
That, in the merry months o' spring,
Delighted me to hear thee sing,

What comes o' thee?

Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing,

An' close thy e'e?

Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd,

Lone from your savage homes exiled,

The blood-stained roost, and sheep-cote spoiled

My heart forgets,

While pitiless the tempest wild

Sore on you beats.

Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign,
Dark muffled, viewed the dreary plain;
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train,

Rose in my soul,

When on my ear this plaintive strain

Slow, solemn, stole :

"Blow, blow, ye winds, with heayier gust!
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost!
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!

Not all your rage, as now united, shows
More hard unkindness, unrelenting,

Vengeful malice unrepenting,

Than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows!

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