THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1746.

MOURN, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!
Thy sons, for valour long renowned,
Lie slaughtered on their native ground!
Thy hospitable roofs no more
Invite the stranger to the door;
n smoky ruins sunk they lie,
The monuments of cruelty.

The wretched owner sees afar
His all become the prey of war;
Bethinks him of his babes and wife,
Then smites his breast and curses life.
Thy swains are famished on the rocks,
Where once they fed their wanton flocks;
Thy ravished virgins shriek in vain ;
Thy infants perish on the plain.

What boots it then, in every clime,
Through the wide-spreading waste of time,
Thy martial glory, crowned with praise,
Still shone with undiminished blaze?
Thy towering spirit now is broke,
Thy neck is bended to the yoke.
What foreign arms could never quell,
By civil rage and rancour fell.

The rural pipe and merry lay
No more shall cheer the happy day :
No social scenes of gay delight
Beguile the dreary winter night:
No strains but those of sorrow flow,
And nought be heard but sounds of woe;
While the pale phantoms of the slain
Glide nightly o'er the silent plain.

O baneful cause! O fatal morn!
Accursed to ages yet unborn!
The sons against their fathers stood,
The parent shed his children's blood.
Yet, when the rage of battle ceased,
The victor's soul was not appeased.
The naked and forlorn must feel
Devouring flames, and murdering steel!

The pious mother, doomed to death, Forsaken, wanders o'er the heath;

The bleak wind whistles round her head,
Her helpless orphans cry for bread :
Bereft of shelter, food, and friend,
She views the shades of night descend ;
And, stretched beneath the inclement skies,
Weeps o'er her tender babes,-and dies.

While the warm blood bedews my veins,
And unimpair'd remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country's fate
Within my filial breast shall beat;
And, spite of her insulting foe,
My sympathising verse shall flow:
"Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn !"

SONG.

To fix her 'twere a task as vain
To count the April drops of rain,
To sow in Afric's barren soil,
Or tempests hold within a toil.

I know it, friend, she's light as air
False as the fowler's artful snare ;
Inconstant as the passing wind,
As winter's dreary frost unkind.

She's such a miser, too, in love,
Its joys she'll neither share nor prove
Though hundreds of gallants await
From her victorious eyes their fate.

Blushing at such inglorious reign,

I sometimes strive to break her chain,

My reason summon to my aid,
Resolve no more to be betrayed.

Ah! friend, 'tis but a short-lived trance,
Dispelled by one enchanting glance;
She need but look, and I confess
Those looks completely curse or bless.

So soft, so elegant, so fair,

Sure something more than human's tnere, I must submit, for strife is vain,

'Twas destiny that forged the chain.

BURLESQUE ODE.*

The grove shall smooth the horrors of the shade,

And streams in murmurs shall forget to flow. Shine, goddess, shine with unremitted ray,

less fate, From these weak arms, mine aged grannam tore?

These pious arms essay'd too late To drive the dismal phantom from the door. Could not thy healing drop, illustrious quack! Could not thy salutary pill prolong her days, For whom, so oft, to Mary bone, alack! Thy sorrels dragged thee through the worst of ways?

Oil-dropping Twick'nham did not then retain Thy steps, though tended by the Cambrian maids,

Nor the sweet environs of Drury-lane ; Nor dusty Pimlico's embowering shades ; Nor Whitehall, by the river's bank, Beset with rowers dank;

day.

Labour with thee forgets his pain,
And aged Poverty can smile with thee;
If thou be nigh, Grief's hate is vain,
And weak the uplifted arm of Tyranny.
The morning opes on high
His universal eye;

And on the world doth pour
His glories in a golden shower:
Lo! darkness trembling 'fore the hostile ray,
Shrinks to the cavern deep and wood forlorn ;
The brood obscene, that own her gloomy sway,
Troop in her rear, and fly the approach of

morn.

Pale shivering ghosts, that dread the all-cheering light,

sons;

Nor where, to mix with offal, soil, and blood, Steep Snow-hill rolls the sable flood; Nor where the Mint's contaminated kennel runs

I doth it now beseem,

That thou shouldst doze and dream,
When death in mortal armour came,
And struck with ruthless dart the gentle dame.
Her lib'ral hand and sympathizing breast
The brute creation kindly bless'd :
Where'er she trod, grimalkin purr'd around,
The squeaking pigs her bounty own'd;
Nor to the waddling duck or gambling goose,
Did she glad sustenance refuse ;
The strutting cock she daily fed,
And turkey with his snout so red;
Of chickens careful as the pious hen,

Nor did she overlook the tomtit or the wren ;

While redbreast hopp'd before her in the hall,

As if she common mother were of all.

For my distracted mind,

What comfort can I find?

O best of grannams! thou art dead and gone,
And I am left behind to weep and moan,
To sing thy dirge in sad funereal lay,
Oh! woe is me! alack! and well-a-day!

ODE TO MIRTH.

PARENT of joy! heart-easing Mirth!
Whether of Venus or Aurora born,

Yet goddess sure of heavenly birth
Visit benign a son of grief forlorn,
Thy glittering colours gay,
Around him, Mirth, display:
And o'er his raptured sense
Diffuse thy living influence:

So shall each hill, in purer green array'd And flower-adorned, in new-born beauty glow;

*Dr Smollett, imagining himself ill-treated by Lord Lyttleton, wrote the above burlesque on that nobleman's Monody on the Death of his Lady.

chral night.

But whence the gladdening beam
That pours his purple stream

O'er the long prospect wide?
"Tis mirth. I see her sit,
In majesty of light,

With Laughter at her side.
Bright eyed Fancy hovering near,
Wide waves her glancing wing in air;
And young Wit flings his pointed dart,
That guiltless strikes the willing heart.

Fear not now Affliction's power,
Fear not now wild Passion's rage,

Nor fear ye aught in evil hour, Save the tardy hand of Age.

Now Mirth had heard the suppliant poet's prayer,

No cloud that rides the blast shall vex the

troubled air.

ODE TO SLEEP.

SOFT Sleep, profoundly pleasing power
Sweet patron of the peaceful hour,
O listen from thy calm abode,
And hither wave thy magic rod!
Extend thy silent soothing sway,
And charm the canker, Care, away.
Whether thou lov'st to glide along,
Attended by an airy throng
Of gentle dreams and smiles of joy,
Such as adorn the wanton boy;
Or to the monarch's fancy bring
Delights that better suit a king,
The glittering host, the groaning plain,
The clang of arms, and victor's train ;
Or should a milder vision please,
Present the happy scenes of peace;
Plump autumn, blushing all around,
Rich Industry, with toil embrowned,
Content, with brow serenely gay,
And genial Art's refulgent ray.

ODE TO BLUE-EYED ANN.

WHEN the rough North forgets to howl,
And Ocean's billows cease to roll;
When Libyan sands are bound in frost,
And cold to Nova Zembla's lost;
When heavenly bodies cease to move,
My blue-eyed Ann I'll cease to love.

No more shall flowers the meads adorn,
Nor sweetness deck the rosy thorn,
Nor swelling buds proclaim the spring,
Nor parching heats the dog-star bring,
Nor laughing lilies paint the grove,
When blue-eyed Ann I cease to love.

No more shall joy in hope be found,
Nor pleasures dance their frolic round,
Nor love's light god inhabit earth,
Nor beauty give the passion birth,
Nor heat to summer sunshine cleave,
When blue-eyed Nanny I deceive.

When rolling seasons cease to change,
Inconstancy forgets to range,
When lavish May no more shall bloom,
Nor gardens yield a rich perfume;
When nature from her sphere shall start,
I'll tear my Nanny from my heart.

ODE TO INDEPENDENCE.

STROPHE.

Thy spirit, Independence, let me share, Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye, Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare, Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky. Deep in the frozen regions of the north, A goddess violated brought thee forth. Immortal Liberty, whose look sublime Hath bleached the tyrant's cheek in every varying clime.

What time the iron-hearted Gaul, With frantic Superstition for his guide, Armed with the dagger and the pall, The sons of Woden to the field defied ; The ruthless hag, by Weser's flood, In Heaven's name urged the infernal blow, And red the stream began to flow : The vanquished were baptized with blood !*

ANTISTROPHE.

Of ample front the portly chief appeared; The hunted bear supplied a shaggy vest,

The drifted snow hung on his yellow beard, And his broad shoulders braved the furious blast. He stopt; he gazed; his bosom glowed, And deeply felt the impression of her charms. He seized the advantage Fate allowed, And straight compressed her in his vigorous arms.

STROPHE,

The curlew screamed, the Tritons blew Their shells, to celebrate the ravished rite; Old Time exulted as he flew,

And Independence saw the light.

The light he saw in Albion's happy plains, Where, under cover of a flowering thorn,

While Philomel renewed her warbled strains, The auspicious fruit of stolen embrace was born. The mountain Dryads seized with joy The smiling infant to their charge consigned ;

The Doric muse caressed the favourite boy; The hermit Wisdom stored his opening mind. As rolling years matured his age,

He flourished bold and sinewy as his sire; While the mild passions in his breast assuage The fiercer flames of his maternal fire.

Arabia's scorching sands he crossed,§
Where blasted Nature pants supine,
Conductor of her tribes adust

To Freedom's adamantine shrine ;
And many a Tartar horde forlorn, aghast !|||
He snatched from under fell Oppression's
wing,

Although Venice was built a considerable time before the era here assigned for the birth of Independence, the republic had not yet attained to any great degree of power and splendour.

+ The Low Countries were not only oppressed by grievous taxations, but likewise threatened with the establishment of the Inquisition, when the Seven Provinces revolted, and shook off the yoke of Spain.

Alluding to the known story of William Tell and his associates, the fathers and founders of the confederacy of the Swiss cantons.

The Arabs, rather than abandon their independency, have often abandoned their habitations, and encountered all the horrors of the desert.

From the tyranny of Jenghis Khan, Timur Bec, and other eastern conquerors, whole tribes of Tartars were used to fly into the remoter wastes of Cathay where no army could follow them.

Those sculptured halls my feet shall never tread, Where varnished vice and vanity, combined To dazzle and seduce, their banners spread,

And forge vile shackles for the freeborn mind; While Insolence his front uprears,

And all the flowers of spurious Fancy blow, And Title his ill-woven chaplet wears,

Full often wreathed around the miscreant's brow:

Where ever-dimpling Falsehood, pert and vain, Presents her cup of stale profession's froth, And pale Disease, with all his bloated train, Torments the sons of gluttony and sloth.

STROPHE.

In Fortune's car behold that minion ride, With either India's glittering spoils oppressed; The noble stand made by Paschal Paoli and his associates against the usurpation of the French king, must endear them to all the sons of liberty and independence.

So moves the sumpter-mule, in harnessed pride, That bears the treasure which she cannot taste. For him let venal bards disgrace the bay,

And hireling minstrels wake the tinkling

string;

Her sensual snares let faithless Pleasure lay,
And jingling bells fantastic Folly ring;
Disquiet, doubt and dread shall intervene ;
And Nature, still to all her feelings just,
In vengeance hang a damp on every scene,
Shook from the baneful pinions of disgust.

ANTISTROPHE.

Nature I'll court in her sequestered haunts, By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell,

Where the poised lark his evening ditty chants, And Health, and Peace, and Contemplation dwell.

There Study shall with Solitude recline; And Friendship pledge me to his fellow swains ;

And Toil and Temperance sedately twine

The slender cord that fluttering life sustains; And fearless Poverty shall guard the door;

And Taste unspoiled the frugal table spread; And Industry supply the humble store;

White-mantled Innocence, ethereal sprite! And Sleep unbribed his dews refreshing shed; Shall chase far off the goblins of the night: And Independence o'er the day preside, Propitious power! my patron and my pride.