the community, whenever it can come to act, can meet with no effectual resistance; but till power and right are the same, the whole body of them has no right inconsistent with virtue, and the first of all virtues, prudence. Men have no [230 right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit; for though a pleasant writer said, Liceat perire poetis, when one of them, in cold blood, is said to have leaped into the flames of a volcanic revolution, Ardentem frigidus Ætnam insiluit, I consider such a frolic rather as an unjustifiable poetic license, than as one of the franchises of Parnassus; and whether he were poet, or divine, or [240 My Peggy smiles sae kindly, It makes me blyth and bauld, And naething gives me sic1 delight As wauking of the fauld. My Peggy sings sae saftly When on my pipe I play, Gi'e me a lass with a lump of land, 25 30 politician, that chose to exercise this kind THE LASS WITH A LUMP OF LAND of right, I think that more wise, because more charitable, thoughts would urge me rather to save the man, than to preserve his brazen slippers as the monuments of his folly. And we for life shall gang thegither; And blood alane is no worth a shilling; Gi'e me a lass with a lump of land, 5 And in my bosom I'll hug my treasure; 10 Gin I had anes8 her gear" in my hand, Should love turn dowf,10 it will find pleasure. Laugh on wha likes, but there's my hand, I hate with poortith,11 though bonny, to meddle; Unless they bring cash or a lump of land, 15 They'se never get me to dance to their fiddle. There's meikle good love in bands and bags, And siller and gowd's12 a sweet com- But beauty, and wit, and virtue in rags, And naithing can catch our modern But well-tochered15 lasses or jointured widows. 20 On some impatient seizing, hurls them in: Emboldened then, nor hesitating more, 381 Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing wave, And, panting, labor to the farther shore. Repeated this, till deep the well-washed fleece Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt 385 The trout is banished by the sordid stream; Heavy and dripping, to the breezy brow Slow move the harmless race; where, as they spread Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray, Inly disturbed, and wondering what this wild Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints 390 The country fill-and, tossed from rock to rock, Incessant bleatings run around the hills. At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed, Head above head; and ranged in lusty What youthful bride can equal her array? Who can with her for easy pleasure vie? From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray, Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep! From flower to flower on balmy gales to He, like the world, his ready visit pays fly, 80 Is all she has to do beneath the radiant Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he |