See stern oppression's iron grip, Or mad ambition's gory hand, Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, Whose toil upholds the glittering show, A creature of another kind, Some coarser substance, unrefined, Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below. The powers you proudly own? Regardless of the tears and unavailing prayers! She strains your infant to her joyless breast, And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast! Stretched on his straw he lays himself to sleep, The wretch, already crushed low By cruel fortune's undeserved blow? A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!" I hear nae mair, for Chanticleer Shook off the pouthery snaw, And hailed the morning with a cheer— A cottage-rousing craw. But deep this truth impressed my mind- The heart benevolent and kind The most resembles God. "Neither the subjects of his poems," says Wordsworth, speaking of Burns, "nor his manner of handling them, allow us long to forget their author. On the basis of his human character, he has reared a poetic one, which, with more or less distinctness, presents itself to view in almost every part of his earlier, and, in my estimation, his most valuable verses. This poetic fabric, dug out of the quarry of genuine humanity, is airy and spiritual; and though the materials in some parts are coarse, and the disposition is often fantastic and irregular, yet the whole is agreeable and strikingly attractive." The voice which the Poet hears amid the winter storm, utters sentiments in unison with those which the Poet claims as his own in the introduction. He prepares us for sympathizing in the sufferings of the human race by the description of the rivulets choked with snow; the cattle crowding to the shelter of some precipitous bank, and the birds, which cheered him with their songs in summer, sitting chittering among the leafless trees. Elsewhere he sings "The birds sit chittering on the thorn, A' day they dined but sparely." This," says Carlyle, "is worth several homilies on mercy, for it is the voice of mercy herself. Burns, indeed, lives in sympathy; his soul rushes forth into all the realms of being: nothing that has existence can be indifferent to him." THE JOLLY BEGGARS. A CANTATA. RECITATIVO. WHEN lyart leaves bestrow the yird, When hailstanes drive wi' bitter skyte Ae night at e'en a merry core In Poosie-Nansie's held the splore, First, neist the fire, in auld red rags, Ane sat, weel brac'd wi' mealy bags, And knapsack a' in order; His doxy lay within his arm, Wi' usquebae an' blankets warm She blinket on her sodger: An' ay he gies the tozie drab While she held up her greedy gab Ilk smack still, did crack still, AIR. Tune-" Soldiers' Joy." I AM a son of Mars, who have been in many wars, My 'prenticeship I past where my leader breath'd his last, When the bloody die was cast on the heights of Abram; I serv'd out my trade when the gallant game was play'd, And the Moro low was laid at the sound of the drum. Lal de daudle, &c. I lastly was with Curtis, among the floating batt❜ries, Lal de daudle, &c. |