• Waes me for Johnny Ged's Hole* now,' Quo' I, ' If that the news be true!

• His braw calf-ward whare gowans grew, ' Sae white and bonie,

• Nae doubt they'll rive it wi' the plew; They'll ruin Johnie!"

6

The creature grain'd an eldritch laugh,

And says, 'Ye need na yoke the pleugh,

6

Kirkyards will soon be till'd eneugh,

'Tak ye nae fear:

' They'll a' be trench'd wi' mony a sheugh

' In twa-three year.

• Whare I kill'd ane a fair strae death,

By loss o' blood or want of breath,

'This night I'm free to tak my aith,

'That Hornbook's skill

Has clad a score i' their last claith, ' By drap an' pill.

* The grave-digger.

An

6

'An honest Wabster to his trade,

• Whase wife's twa nieves were scarce weel bred,

'Gat tippence-worth to mend her head,

'When it was sair;

'The wife slade cannie to her bed,

'But ne'er spak mair.

• A countra Laird had ta'en the batts
'Or some curmurring in his guts,
' His only son for Hornbook sets,

'An' pays him well.

• The lad, for twa guid gimmer-pets, Was laird himsel.

A bonie lass, ye kend her name,

• Some ill-brewn drink had hov'd her wame;

She trusts hersel, to hide the shame,

'In Hornbook's care;

'Horn sent her aff to her lang hame, 'To hide it there.

That's just a swatch o' Hornbook's way;

'Thus goes he on from day to day,

'Thus does he poison, kill, an' slay,

Yet stops me o' my lawfu' prey,

'An's weel paid for't;

Wi' his d-mn'd dirt:

• But,

'But, hark! I'll tell you of a plot, 'Tho' dinna ye be speaking o't;

* I'll nail the self-conceited Scot,

'As dead's a herrin:

' Niest time we meet, I'll wad a groat,

* He gets his fairin!"

But just as he began to tell,

The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell

Some wee short hour ayont the twal,

Which rais'd uş baith:

I took the way that pleas'd mysel,

THE

BRIGS OF AYR,

A POEM.

IRSCRIBED TO J. B*********, Eso. AYR.

THE simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough, Learning his tuneful trade from ev'ry bough; The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush, Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn

bush;

The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill, Or deep-ton'd plovers, grey, wild-whistling o'er

the hill;

Shall he, nurst in the Peasant's lowly shed,
To hardy independence bravely bred,
By early Poverty to hardship steel'd,

And train'd to arms in stern Misfortune's field,

Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?

Or

1

Or labour hard the panegyric close,
With all the venal soul of dedicating Prose?
No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings,
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard,
Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward.
Still, if some Patron's gen'rous care he trace,
Skill'd in the secret, to bestow with grace;
When B********* befriends his humble name,
And hands the rustic stranger up to fame,
With heart-felt throes his grateful bosom swells,
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.

...

crap;

'Twas when the stacks get on their winter-hap, And thack and rape secure the toil-won Potatoe-bings are snugged up fra skaith Of coming Winter's biting, frosty breath; The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils, Unnumber'd buds an' flow'rs' delicious spoils, Seal'd up with frugal care in massive waxen piles, Are doom'd by man, that tyrant o'er the weak, The death o' devils smoor'd wi' brimstone reek: The thundering guns are heard on ev'ry side, The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide; The feather'd field-mates, bound by Nature's tie, Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie: