Mourn him, thou sun, great source of light! Mourn, empress of the silent night! And you, ye twinkling starnies bright, My Matthew mourn! For through your orbs he's ta'en his flight, O Henderson! the man! the brother! And art thou gone, and gone for ever! And hast thou crost that unknown river, Life's dreary bound! Like thee where shall I find another, The world around! Go to your sculptur'd tombs, ye Great, In a' the tinsel trash o' state! But by thy honest turf I'll wait, Thou man of worth! And weep the ae best fellow's fate E'er lay in earth. THE EPITAPH. STOP, passenger! my story's brief; I tell nae common tale o' grief, If thou uncommon merit hast, A look of pity hither cast, For Matthew was a poor man. If thou a noble sodger art, That passest by this grave, man, There moulders here a gallant heart; For Matthew was a brave man. If thou on men, their works and ways, Canst throw uncommon light, man; Here lies wha weel had won thy praise, For Matthew was a bright man. If thou at friendship's sacred ca' If thou art staunch without a stain, For Matthew was a true man. If thou hast wit, and fun, and fire, If ony whiggish whingin sot, To blame poor Matthew dare, man; May dool and sorrow be his lot, For Matthew was a rare man, LAMENT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING. Now Nature hangs her mantle green And spreads her sheets o' daisies white Now Phœbus cheers the crystal streams, But nought can glad the weary wight Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, The merle, in his noontide bow'r, Now blooms the lily by the bank, The meanest hind in fair Scotland May rove their sweets amang; But I, the queen of a' Scotland, I was the queen o' bonnie France, But as for thee, thou false woman, Grim vengeance, yet, shall whet a sword The weeping blood in woman's breast Was never known to thee; Nor the' balm that draps on wounds of woe Frae woman's pitying e'e. ! My son my son! may kinder stars Upon thy fortune shine; And may those pleasures gild thy reign, God keep thee frae thy mother's faes, And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, O! soon, to me, may summer-suns And the next flow'rs that deck the spring, TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ., OF FINTRA. LATE crippl'd of an arm, and now a leg, Thou, Nature, partial Nature, I arraign; Of thy caprice maternal I complain. The lion and the bull thy care have found, One shakes the forests and one spurns the ground: Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and darts. But Oh! thou bitter step-mother and hard, To thy poor, fenceless, naked child-the Bard! A thing unteachable in world's skill, And half an idiot too, more helpless still. |