And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel-
Before him Doon pours all his floods;

The doubling storm roars through the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
Near and more near the thunders roll;
When glimmering thro' the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze;

Thro' ika bore the beams were glancing,

And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

Sweet Theweret, pledge o' muckle love.
"And ward of mony a prayer.
What heart o' stane was thou na move,
Sae helples, sweet & fair

November hipples o'er the lea,
Chill on thy lovely form.
And gane, alas! the sheltering tree,
Should shield thee free the storm

Fragment of a MS. Poem by Robert Burns

FROM "ADDRESS TO THE DEIL."

O thou! whatever title suit thee,
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim and sootie,
Closed under hatches,

Spairges about the brunstane cootie,
To scaud poor wretches!

Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An' let poor damned bodies be:
I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie,
E'en to a deil,

To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me,
An' hear us squeel!

Great is thy pow'r, an' great thy fame;
Far ken'd and noted is thy name;
An' tho' yon lowin' heugh's thy hame,
Thou travels far;

An' faith thou's neither lag nor lame,
Nor blate nor scaur.

Whiles, ranging like a roarin' lion,
For prey, a' holes and corners tryin' ;
Whyles on the strong-wing'd tempest flyin',
Tirlin' the kirks;

Whyles, in the human bosom pryin',
Unseen thou lurks.

I've heard my reverend grannie say,
In lanely glens you like to stray;
Or where auld ruin'd castles gray
Nod to the moon,

Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way,
Wi' eldritch croon.

When twilight did my grannie summon,
To say her prayers, douce, honest woman!
Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin',
Wi' eerie drone ;

Or, rustlin', thro' the boortries comin',
Wi' heavy groan.

Ae dreary, windy, winter night,

The stars shot down wi' sklentin' light,

Wi' you, mysel', I gat a fright,

Ayont the lough ;

Ye, like a rash-bush stood in sight,
Wi' waving sough.

The cudgel in my nieve did shake,

Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake,

When wi' an eldritch stour, quaick—quaickAmang the springs,

Awa ye squatter'd like a drake,

On whistling wings.

WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD.

Oh whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,
Oh whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad;
Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad,
Oh whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.

But warily tent, when ye come to court me,
And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee;
Syne up the back stile, and let naebody see,
And come as ye were na comin' to me.
And come, &c.

As to

Your book is. I hear, on the road to reach me.frunting of Poetry, when you prepare it for the Press, you have only to spell it right, & place the capital leurs firefully as to the punctuation, the inters do that themselves.

29

I have a copy of Tam of Shanter ready to send you
by the first opportunity : it is too heavy to send by dost
I heard of M. Corbet lately. - He, in consequence of your
recommendation, is most zealous to serve me - Please
favor me soon with an account of your good folks; if Mr.
Henri is recovering. I the young gentleman
doing
Jamever, my dear Friend & honored Patroness,
yours sincerely

well.

Rob Burns

Extract from Letter from Burns to Mrs. Dunlop

JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO.
John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snaw;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.

John Anderson, my jo, John,

We clamb the hill thegither;

And many a canty day, John,

We've had wi' ane anither.

Now we maun totter down, John,

But hand in hand we'll go :

And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.

We have spoken of Burns as he comes to us in the sequence of the great poets of Britain. In Scottish poetry he takes a somewhat different place. Here he seems not one in a chain, but the supreme artist to whom all others are merely subsidiary. Scotch Doric verse appears to us Scotch Doric like a single growth, starting from the rich foliage of Dunbar and his compeers, Verse.

The Poets of the Eighties.

up the slender stem of Alexander Scott, of Sempills, of Montgomery, of Allan

Ramsay, of the song-writers of the eighteenth century, swelling into the fine opening bud of Fergusson, only to break into the single aloe-blossom of the perfect Burns. All local Scottish verse, from the early sixteenth century until to-day, presupposes Burns; it all expands towards him or dwindles from him. If his works were entirely to disappear, we could re-create some idea of his genius from the light that led to it and from the light that withdraws from it. This absolute supremacy of Burns, to perfect whose amazing art the Scottish race seemed to suppress and to despoil itself, is a very remarkable phenomenon. Burns is not merely the national poet of Scotland; he is, in a certain sense, the country itself all elements of Scotch life and manners,

all peculiarities of Scotch temperament and conviction, are found embroidered somewhere or other on Burns's

variegated singing-robes.

It is obvious that these four great poets of the eighties are not merely great" in very various degree, but are singularly unlike one another. Cowper so literary, Crabbe so conventional, Blake so transcendental, Burns so spontaneous and passionate-there seems no sort of relation between them. The first two look backward resolutely, the third resolutely upward, the fourth broadly stretches himself on the impartial bosom of nature, careless of all rules and conventions. It appears impossible to bring them into line, to discover a direction in which all four can be seen to move together. But in reality there is to be discovered in each of them a protest against rhetoric which was to be the keynote of revolt, the protest already being made by Goethe and Wieland, and so soon to be echoed by Alfieri and André Chenier. There was in each of the four British poets, who illuminated this darkest period just before the dawn, the determination to be natural and