Such was my life’s deceitful morning, Such the pleasures I enjoy’d; But lang or noon, loud tempests storming A’ my flowery bliss destroy’d. Tho’ fickle fortune has deceived me, She promised fair, and performed but ill; Of monie a joy and hope bereav’d me, I bear a heart shall support me still.
The moral here is as lame as the meter, and in the open market to-day the “poem” is not worth fourpence. We finish the page with _Bonie Ann_:
Ye gallants bright, I red you right, Beware of bonie Ann: Her comely face sae fu’ o’ grace, Your heart she will trepan. Her een sae bright, like stars by night, Her skin is like the swan; Sae jimpy lac’d her genty waist, That sweetly ye might span.
Youth, grace, and love, attendant move, And pleasure leads the van; In a’ their charms, and conquering arms, They wait on bonie Ann. The captive bands may chain the hands, But love enslaves the man: Ye gallants braw, I red you a’ Beware of bonie Ann.
One notes that three out of these five lucubrations have to do with love, and one wonders how a man who went about with such ill-considered love-verses in his pocket ever got a woman to look at him.
To take our life in our hands once more, we open on page 153. Here we have a choice selection of short pieces, and feeble, which we reproduce as they stand:
O, could I give thee India’s wealth, As I this trifle send! Because thy joy in both would be To share them with a friend. But golden sands did never grace The Heliconean stream; Then take what gold could never buy— An honest Bard’s esteem.
In wood and wild, ye warbling throng, Your heavy loss deplore; Now half-extinct your powers of song, Sweet Echo is no more.
Ye jarring, screeching things around, Scream your discordant joys; Now half your din of tuneless sound With Echo silent lies.
The night was still, and o’er the hill The moon shone on the castle wa’; The mavis sang, while dew-drops hang Around her on the castle wa’.
Sae merrily they danced the ring, Frae eenin’ till the cock did craw; And the o’erword o’ the spring, Was Irvine’s bairns are bonie a’.
These three effusions, dear reader, are really and truly the work of Burns—or, if you prefer it, of Burrrrrns. In despair one hunts up something for which the man is noted. _Scots Wha Hae_ one thinks, will serve. It has been described as noble, and marvellous, and inspiring, and Heaven knows what besides. Here it is: