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EXTEMPORE,

WRITTEN IN A LADY'S POCKET-BOOK.

GRANT me, indulgent Heav'n! that I may live
To see the miscreants feel the pains they give;
Deal Freedom's sacred treasures free as air,
Till slave and despot be but things which were.

LINES

ON MISS J. SCOTT, OF AYR.

OH! had each Scot of ancient times,
Been Jeany Scott, as thou art,
The bravest heart on English ground,
Had yielded like a coward.

LINES

WRITTEN UNDER THE PICTURE OF THE CELEBRATED

MISS BURNS.

CEASE, ye prudes, your envious railing,

Lovely Burns has charms-confess'

True it is, she had one failing;

Had a woman ever less?

LINES,

ON BEING ASKED WHY GOD HAD MADE MISS DAVIS SO

LITTLE, AND

MISS

SO LARGE;

-WRITTEN

A PANE OF GLASS, IN THE INN AT MOFFAT.

ASK why God made the gem so small,
And why so huge the granite!
Because God meant mankind should set
The higher value on it.

אי

LINES

WRITTEN AND PRESENTED TO MRS. KEMBLE, ON SEE

ING HER IN THE CHARACTER OF YARICO.

KEMBLE, thou cur'st my unbelief

Of Moses and his rod;

At Yarico's sweet notes of grief,
The rock with tears had flow'd'

Dumfries Theatre, 1794.

29*

LINES

WRITTEN ON WINDOWS OF THE GLOBE TAVERN,

DUMFRIES.

THE graybeard, old Wisdom, may boast of his treas

ures,

Give me with gay Folly to live;

I grant him his calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures. But Folly has raptures to give.

I MURDER hate by field or flood,
Tho' glory's name may screen "s;
In wars at hame I'll spend my blood-
Life-giving war of Venus.

The deities that I adore,

Are social Peace and Plenty :

I'm better pleas'd to make one more
Than be the death of twenty.

My bottle is my holy pool,

That heals the wounds o' care and doo

And pleasure is a wanton trout,

An' ye drink it, ye'll find him out.

IN politics if thou would'st mix,

And mean thy fortunes be;

Bear this in mind-be deaf and blind

Let great folks hear and see.

LINES

WRITTEN ON A WINDOW, AT THE KING'S-ARMS TAVERN,

DUMFRIES.

YE men of wit and wealth, wi' a' this sneering
'Gainst poor Excisemen, give the cause a hearing:
What are your landlord's rent-rolls? taxing legers:
What premiers, what? even Monarch's mighty gaugers:
Nay, what are priests? those seeming godly wise men
What are they, pray? but spiritual Excisemen.

A VERSE,

PRESENTED BY THE AUTHOR, TO THE MASTER OF A
HOUSE, AT A PLACE IN THE HIGHLANDS, WHERE HE
HAD BEEN HOSPITABLY ENTERTAINED.

WHEN Death's dark stream I ferry o'er-
A time that surely shall come;
In Heaven itself, I'll ask no more,
Than just a Highland welcome

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EPIGRAM.

[Burns, accompanied by a friend, having gone to Inverary at a time when some company were there on a visit to the Duke of Argyll, finding himself and his companion entirely neglected by the innkeeper, whose whole attention seemed to be occupied with the visiters of his Grace, expressed his disapprobation of the incivility with which they were treated, in the following lines.]

WHOE'ER he be that sojourns here,

I pity much his case,

Unless he comes to wait upon

The Lord their God his Grace.

There's naething here but Highland pride,
And Highland scab and hunger;

If Providence has sent me here,
"Twas surely in an anger.

EPIGRAM

ON ELPHINSTONE'S TRANSLATION OF MARTIAL'S EPI

GRAMS.

O THOU whom Poetry abhors,

Whom Prose has turned out of doors,

Heard'st thou that groan?-proceed no further,

'Twas laurell'd Martial roaring, Murder

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