“Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe, With lordly Honour's lofty brow, The pow'rs you proudly own? Is there, beneath Love's noble name, Can harbour, dark, the selfish aim, To bless himself alone? Mark maiden-innocence a prey To love-pretending snares: This boasted Honour turns away, Shunning soft Pity's rising sway, Regardless of the tears and unavailing pray'rs! Perhaps this hour, in Misery's squalid nest, She strains your infant to her joyless breast, And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast!
“Oh ye! who, sunk in beds of down, Feel not a want but what yourselves create, Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate, Whom friends and fortune quite disown! Ill-satisfy'd keen nature's clamorous call, Stretch'd on his straw, he lays himself to sleep; While through the ragged roof and chinky wall, Chill, o'er his slumbers, piles the drifty heap! Think on the dungeon's grim confine, Where Guilt and poor Misfortune pine! Guilt, erring man, relenting view, But shall thy legal rage pursue The wretch, already crushed low By cruel Fortune's undeserved blow? Affliction's sons are brothers in distress; A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!”
I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer Shook off the pouthery snaw, And hail'd the morning with a cheer, A cottage-rousing craw. But deep this truth impress'd my mind-- Thro' all His works abroad, The heart benevolent and kind The most resembles God.
Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide, That nurse in their bosom the youth o' the Clyde, Where the grouse lead their coveys thro' the heather to feed, And the shepherd tends his flock as he pipes on his reed.
Not Gowrie's rich valley, nor Forth's sunny shores, To me hae the charms o'yon wild, mossy moors; For there, by a lanely, sequestered stream, Besides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream.
Amang thae wild mountains shall still be my path, Ilk stream foaming down its ain green, narrow strath; For there, wi' my lassie, the day lang I rove, While o'er us unheeded flie the swift hours o'love.
She is not the fairest, altho' she is fair; O' nice education but sma' is her share; Her parentage humble as humble can be; But I lo'e the dear lassie because she lo'es me.
To Beauty what man but maun yield him a prize, In her armour of glances, and blushes, and sighs? And when wit and refinement hae polish'd her darts, They dazzle our een, as they flie to our hearts.