For us and for our stage should ony spier, Whose aught thae chiels maks a' this bustle here?" My best leg foremost, I'll set up my brow, We're your ain bairns, e'en guide us as ye like, AN EXTEMPORANEOUS EFFUSION, On being appointed to the Excise. Searching auld wives' barrels, Och, oh! the day! That clarty barm should stain my laurels: These muvin' things ca'd wives and weans TO THE OWL-By John M'Creddie*. Sad bird of night, what sorrow calls thee forth, Burns sometimes wrote poems in the old ballad style, which, for reasons best known to himself, he gave to the world as songs of the olden time. That famous soldier's song in particular, first printed in a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, General Correspondence, No. LX, beginning Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, Is it some blast that gathers in the north, Is it, sad owl, that autumn strips the shade, Or friendless melancholy bids thee mourn? Shut out, lone bird, from all the feather'd train, Is beauty less, when down the glowing cheek, has been pronounced by some of our best living po ets, an inimitable relique of some ancient minstrel ! Yet I have discovered it to be the actual production of Burns himself. The ballad of Auld lang syne was also introduced in this ambiguous manner, though there exist proofs that the two best stanzas of it are indisputably his; hence there are strong grounds for believing this poem also to be his production, notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary. It was found among his MSS. in his own hand writing, with occasional interlineations, such as occur in all his primitive effusions. It is worthy of his muse; but it is more in the style of Gray or Collins, Should there, however, be a real author of the name of John M'Creddie, he will not be displeased at the publication of his poem, when he recollects that it had obtained the notice of Burns, and had undergone his correction. E. Ah no, sad owl! nor is thy voice less sweet, That sadness tunes it, and that grief is there; That spring's gay notes, unskill'd, thou canst Nor that the treble songsters of the day thee; Nor that the thrush deserts the evening spray, From some old tow'r, thy melancholy dome, There hooting, I will list more pleas'd to thee, A ON SEEING THE BEAUTIFUL SEAT OF LORD G. What dost thou in that mansion fair? Flit, G, and find Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave, The picture of thy mind! ON THE SAME. No Stewart art thou, G The Stewarts all were brave; ON THE SAME. Bright ran thy line, O, G Thro' many a far-fam'd sire! ON THE SAME. On the author being threatened with his resentment. Spare me thy vengeance, G I ask no kindness at thy hand, THE DEAN OF FACULTY. A new ballad. Tune-The Dragon of Wantley. Dire was the hate at old Harlaw, Than 'twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job- This Hal for genius, wit, and lore, Which shews that heaven can boil the pot, Squire Hal, besides, had in this case Quite sick of merit's rudeness, As once on Pisgah purg'd was the sight So may be, on this Pisgah height, Nay, Bobby's mouth may be open'd yet EXTEMPORE IN THE COURT OF SESSION. Tune-Gillicrankie. LORD A――TE. He clench'd his pamphlets in his fist, He quoted and he hinted, Till in a declamation-mist, His argument he tint it; He gaped for 't, he gaped for 't, He fand it was awa, man; But what his common sense come short, Tint-lost. |