Ye powers that weak mortals govern,
Keep pride at his bay from my mind;
O let me not haughtily learn

To despise the few friends that were kind!

For theirs was a feeling sincere ;

'Twas free from delusion and art; O may I that friendship revere, And hold it yet dear to my heart!

By which was I ever forgot?

It was both my physician and cure, That still found the way to my cot, Although I was wretched and poor.

'Twas balm to my canker-tooth'd care,
The wound of affliction it heal'd;
In distress it was Pity's soft tear,
When naked, cold Poverty's shield.

Attend, ye kind youth of the plain!

Who oft with my sorrows condoled;

You cannot be deaf to the strain,
Since Damon is master of gold.

1

I have chose a soft1 sylvan retreat,
Bedeck'd with the beauties of spring;
Around my flocks wander2 and bleat,
While the musical choristers sing.

I force not the waters to stand
In an artful canal at my door,

1 Var. sweet.

2 Var. nibble.

She has taught the grave larix to droop,
And the birch to deal odours around.

For whom has she perfumed my groves?
For whom has she cluster'd my vine?
If friendship despise my alcoves,
They'll ne'er be recesses of mine.

He who tastes his grape juices by stealth,
Without chosen companions to share,

Is the basest of slaves to his wealth,
And the pitiful minion of care.

O come! and with Damon retire

Amidst the green umbrage embower'd! Your mirth and your songs to inspire, Shall the juice of his vintage be pour'd.

O come, ye dear friends of his youth!
Of all his good fortune partake;
Nor think 'tis departing from truth,

To say 'twas preserved for your sake.

THE CANONGATE PLAY-HOUSE IN RUINS.

A BURLESQUE POEM.

[This 'Theatre' stood behind the south line of the street, opposite to the head of New Street. It was founded in 1746 by Ryan of Covent Garden, London: but was only first used under the royal licence on 9th December, 1767. A new 'Theatre' being built in 1768 in the New Town, the humble 'Canongate' was almost immediately after left to ruin. It was in this "Theatre' that the 'Gentle Shepherd' of Ramsay was first publicly represented, and where subsequently Home's 'Douglas' was first privately represented with such a Corps Dramatique as is unlikely ever to "tread the Stage again."]

YE few, whose feeling hearts are ne'er estranged
From soft emotions! ye who often wear
The eye of pity, and oft vent her sighs,
When sad Melpomene, in woe-fraught strains,
Gains entrance to the breast; or often smile
When brisk Thalia gayly trips along
Scenes of enlivening mirth; attend my song.
And Fancy! thou whose ever-flaming light
Can penetrate into the dark abyss

Of chaos, and of hell-O! with thy blazing torch
The wasteful scene illumine, that the Muse,
With daring pinions, may her flight pursue,
Nor with timidity be known to soar
O'er the theatric world, to chaos changed.
Can I contemplate on those dreary scenes
Of mould'ring desolation, and forbid
The voice elegiac and the falling tear!
No more from box to box the basket piled
With oranges as radiant as the spheres,

Shall with their luscious virtues charm the sense

By rustling silks and waving capuchins,
Are now become the sport of wrinkled time!
Those walls, that late have echoed to the voice
Of stern King Richard, to the seat transform'd
Of crawling spiders and detested moths,
Who in the lonely crevices reside ;

Or gender in the beams, that have upheld
Gods, demi-gods, and all the joyous crew
Of thunderers in the galleries above.

O Shakspeare! where are all thy tinsell'd kings,
Thy fawning courtiers, and thy waggish clowns?
Where all thy fairies, spirits, witches, fiends,
That here have gamboll'd in nocturnal sport,
Round the lone oak, or sunk in fear away
From the shrill summons of the cock at morn?
Where now the temples, palaces, and towers?
Where now the groves that ever-verdant smiled?
Where now the streams that never ceased to flow?
Where now the clouds, the rains, the hails, the winds,
The thunders, lightnings, and the tempests strong?

Here shepherds, lolling in their woven bowers,
In dull recitativo often sung

Their loves accompanied with clangour strong
From horns, from trumpets, clarionets, bassoons;

From violinos sharp, or droning bass,
Or the brisk tinkling of a harpsichord.

Such is thy power, O music! such thy fame,
That it has fabled been, how foreign song,
Soft issuing from Tenducci's1 slender throat,
Has drawn a plaudit from the gods enthroned
Round the empyreum of Jove himself,
High seated on Olympus' airy top.

Nay, that his feverous voice was known to soothe
The shrill-toned prating of the female tongues,
Who, in obedience to the lifeless song,
All prostrate fell; all fainting died away
In silent ecstacies of passing joy.

Ye who oft wander by the silver light

Of sister Luna, or to church-yard's gloom,

Or cypress shades, if chance should guide your steps
To this sad mansion, think not that you tread
Unconsecrated paths; for on this ground

Have holy streams been pour'd, and flow'rets strew'd;
While many a kingly diadem, I ween,

Lies useless here entomb'd, with heaps of coin

Stamp'd in theatric mint: offenceless gold!

That carried not persuasion in its hue,

To tutor mankind in their evil ways.

After a lengthen'd series of years,

When the unhallow'd spade shall discompose

1 Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci.-This Operatic singer was not certainly the Orpheus which Fergusson represents: at the same time his mellifluous mode of singing Scottish melodies made him an especial favourite. It was for Tenducci that Fergusson first appeared as an author by writing [1769] the Songs in the Opera of Artaxerxes. Alexander Campbell, in his History of Scottish Poetry [Life of Fergusson], has recorded that Tenducci used to speak of our Poet with the tenderest emotion and affection. He it was who attracted George Thomson's attention to the Scottish melodies' which issued in their marriage to "immortal verse" in the peerless lyrics of Burns and other of the great Poets of Scotland.