Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

EURNS.

1759-1796.

PRINCIPAL WORKS:-Most of Burns' productions are of the 'occasional' species. Some of the first to attract notice were Holy Willy's Prayer, a humorous satire upon the cant of the orthodox Kirk of the day-The Holy Fair, in a similar style-Address to the Deil, in which he ridicules the surviving popular notions of his countrymen as to the diabolic attributes one of his best and most popular pieces.- Address to a Mouse, and On Searing Waterfowl, &c., are instances of feeling which exhibit him as one who could sympathise with all sentient and innocent life, however lowly, as well as appreciate the charms of the inanimate world. Tam O'Shanter, his chef-d'œuvre, and the most humorous of all his works; descriptive of the Gilpin-ride of a drunken rustic who imagines himself pursued by a legion of goblins. Amongst his other numerous desultory pieces The Jolly Beggars, Bruce's Address, A Vision of Liberty. The Cotter's Saturday Night, and the Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson, may be enumerated as the most considerable, and perhaps represent the order of merit and interest.

The merits of Burns are his simple and idiomatic diction, apparent sensibility of feeling, lively humour and originality. He has been sometimes termed the Shakespeare, and sometimes the Byron of Scotland; with what sort of propriety of analogy it is difficult to perceive. In his comic pieces, it may be remarked, he employs his native dialect, while in his serious he adopts the smoother and more euphonious language of the South. Had he lived longer he might perhaps have produced something, if not more valuable, at least more ambitious than he ever attempted. Yet his peculiar genius lay apparently in the sonnet, and, especially, in the humorous style, rather than in the more ambitious flights of the art. Like so many others of the 'tuneful tribe,' he had emerged into fame from the obscure grades of society.

LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTLAND ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING.

Now Nature hangs her mantle green

On every blooming tree,

And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea:

Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,

And glads the azure skies;

But nought can glad the weary wight

That fast in durance lies.

Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing;

The merle, in his noontide bower,
Makes woodland echoes ring!
The mavis wild, wi' mony a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest :
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.

Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae ;

The meanest hind in fair Scotland

May rove their sweets amang:
But I, the queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang!

I was the queen o' bonny France,
Where happy I hae been ;

Fu' lightly rase I in the morn,
As blithe lay down at e'en :
And I'm the sovereign of Scotland,
And mony a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands,

And never-ending care.

But as for thee, thou false woman!-
My sister and my fae,

Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a sword
That through thy soul shall gae!
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 ee.

My son

[ocr errors]

my son ! may kinder stars

Upon thy fortune shine!

And may those pleasures gild thy reign,

That ne'er wad blink on mine!

God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,

Or turn their hearts to thee:

And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, Remember him for me!

Oh! soon to me may summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair to me the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn!

And in the narrow house o' death
Let winter round me rave;

And the next flowers that deck the spring
Bloom on my peaceful grave!

GOTHIC RUINS.

YE holy walls that, still sublime,
Resist the crumbling touch of time;
How strongly still your form displays
The piety of ancient days!

As through your ruins, hoar and gray—
Ruins yet beauteous in decay—
The silvery moonbeams trembling fly,
The forms of ages long gone by
Crowd thick on Fancy's wondering eye,
And wake the soul to musings high.
Even now, as lost in thought profound,
I view the solemn scene around,
And pensive, gaze with wistful eyes,
The past returns, the present flies:
Again the dome, in pristine pride,
Lifts high its roof and arches wide,
That, knit with curious tracery,
Each Gothic ornament display:
The high-arch'd windows, painted fair,
Show many a saint and martyr there.
As on their slender forms I gaze,
Methinks they brighten to a blaze!
With noiseless step and taper bright,
What are yon forms that meet my sight?
Slowly they move, while every eye
Is heavenward raised in ecstasy.-
"Tis the fair, spotless, vestal train,
That seek in prayer the midnight fane;
And hark! what more than mortal sound
Of music breathes the pile around?—

'Tis the soft-chanted choral song,

Whose tones the echoing aisles prolong;
Till, thence return'd, they softly stray
O'er Cluden's wave, with fond delay;
Now on the rising gale swell high,
And now in fainting murmurs die.
The boatmen on Nith's gentle stream,
That glistens in the pale moonbeam,
Suspend their dashing oars to hear
The holy anthem, loud and clear;
Each worldly thought a while forbear,
And mutter forth a half-form'd prayer.
But, as I gaze, the vision fails

Like frostwork touch'd by southern gales;
The altar sinks, the tapers fade,
And all the splendid scene's decay'd;
In window fair the painted pane
No longer glows with holy stain,
But through the broken glass the gale
Blows chilly from the misty vale;
The bird of eve flits sullen by,

Her home these aisles and arches high!
The choral hymn, that erst so clear
Broke softly sweet on Fancy's ear,
Is drown'd amid the mournful scream
That breaks the magic of my dream.
Roused by the sound, I start and see
The ruin'd sad reality!

On an Evening View of the Ruins of Lincluden Abbey.

« VorigeDoorgaan »