On seeing a Butterfly in the Street,

Ode to the Gowdspink,

Cauler Water,

The Sitting of the Session,

The Rising of the Session,

Leith Races,

122

124

127

130

132

135

A Drink Eclogue,

To the Principal and Professors of the University of St Andrews, on their superb

treat to Dr Johnson,

151

156

160

Song,

Page 201

Epigram on a Lawyer's desiring one of the

Tribe to look with respect to a Gibbet,

On the Author's intention of going to Sea,

Extempore Epigram,

Lines addressed to R. F. by Mr Woods,

The Vanity of Human Wishes,

202

ib.

ib.

203

204

POEMS

ON

VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

PASTORAL I.

MORNING.

DAMON, ALEXIS.

DAMON.

AURORA now her welcome visit pays;
Stern darkness flies before her cheerful rays;
Cool circling breezes whirl along the air,
And early shepherds to the fields repair :
Lead we our flocks, then, to the mountain's brow,
Where junipers and thorny brambles grow;
Where founts of water 'midst the daisies spring,
And soaring larks and tuneful linnets sing;
Your pleasing song shall teach our flocks to stray,
While sounding echoes smooth the sylvan lay.

ALEXIS.

'Tis thine to sing the graces of the morn,
The zephyr trembling o'er the ripening corn;
A

'Tis thine with ease to chant the rural lay, While bubbling fountains to your numbers play. No piping swain that treads the verdant field, But to your music and your verse must yield: Sing then,-for here we may with safety keep Our sportive lambkins on this mossy steep.

DAMON.

;

With ruddy glow the sun adorns the land
The pearly dew-drops on the bushes stand;
The lowing oxen from the folds we hear;
And snowy flocks upon the hills appear.

ALEXIS.

How sweet the murmurs of the neighbouring rill! Sweet are the slumbers which its floods distill, Through pebbly channels winding as they run, And brilliant sparkling to the rising sun.

DAMON.

Behold Edina's lofty turrets rise!

Her structures fair adorn the eastern skies:
As Pentland's cliffs o'ertop yon distant plain,
So she the eities on our north domain.

ALEXIS.

Boast not of cities, or their lofty towers,
Where discord all her baneful influence pours;
The homely cottage, and the wither'd tree,,
With sweet content, shall be preferr❜d by me.

DAMON.

The hemlock dire shall please the heifer's taste,
Our lands like wild Arabia be waste,

The bee forget to range for winter's food,
Ere I forsake the forest and the flood.

ALEXIS.

Ye balmy breezes! wave the verdant field;
Clouds! all your bounties, all your moisture yield;
That fruits and herbage may our farms adorn,
And furrow'd ridges teem with loaded corn.

DAMON.

The year already hath propitious smil'd;
Gentle in spring-time, and in summer mild;
No cutting blasts have hurt my tender dams;
No hoary frosts destroy'd my infant lambs.

ALEXIS.

If Ceres crown with joy the bounteous year,
A sacred altar to her shrine I'll rear ;

A vigorous ram shall bleed, whose curling horns
His woolly neck and hardy front adorns.

DAMON.

Teach me, O Pan! to tune the slender reed,
No favourite ram shall at thine altars bleed;
Each breathing morn thy woodland verse I'll sing,
And hollow dens shall with the numbers ring.

ALEXIS.

Apollo! lend me thy celestial lyre,

The woods in concert join at thy desire;
At morn, at noon, at night, I'll tune the lay,
And bid fleet Echo bear the sound away.

DAMON.

Sweet are the breezes, when cool eve returns,
To lowing herds, when raging Sirius burns:
Not half so sweetly winds the breeze along,
As does the murmur of your pleasing song.