Hear, O Self-Giver, infinite as good;
This faith, at least, my wavering heart should hold,
Nor find in dark regret its daily food,
But catch the gleam of glories yet untold.
Yea, even on earth, beloved, as love well knew,
Brief absence brought our fond returning kiss,
So let my soul to God's great world and you
Look onward with sweet pain of secret bliss; —
O sunset sky and lonely gleaming star,
Your beauty thrills me from the bound of space,
O Love, thy loveliness shows best afar,
And only Heaven shall give thee perfect grace;

Hear me, O God!
A broken heart
Is my best part:
Use still thy rod
That I may prove
Therein thy love.

If thou hadst not
Been stern to me,
But left me free,
I had forgot
Myself and thee.

For sin's so sweet,
As minds ill bent
Rarely repent,
Until they meet
Their punishment.

Who more can crave
Than thou hast done,
That gav'st a son
To free a slave,
First made of nought,
With all since bought?

Sin, Death, and Hell
His glorious Name
Quite overcame,
Yet I rebel,

Hear me as if thy eares had palate, Jack,
I sing the praise of Sack:
Hence with Apollo and the muses nine,
Give me a cup of wine.
Sack will the soule of Poetry infuse,
Be that my theam and muse.
But Bacchus I adore no Deity,
Nor Bacchus neither unlesse Sack he be.

Let us by reverend degrees draw near,
I feel the Goddesse here.
Loe I, dread Sack, an humble Priest of thine
First kisse this cup thy shrine.
That with more hallowed lips and inlarg'd soule
I may receive the whole:
Till Sibyl -like full with my God I lye,

Health to the Maxwels' veteran Chief!
Health, ay unsour'd by care or grief:
Inspired, I turn'd Fate's sybil leaf,
This natal morn,
I see thy life is stuff o' prief,
Scarce quite half-worn. —

This day thou metes threescore eleven,
And I can tell that bounteous Heaven
(The Second-sight, ye ken, is given
To ilka Poet)
On thee a tack o' seven times seven
Will yet bestow it. —

If envious buckies view wi' sorrow
Thy lengthen'd days on this blest morrow,
May Desolation's lang-teeth'd harrow,
Nine miles an hour,

Health is the first good lent to men;
A gentle disposition, then;
Next, to be rich by no by-ways;
Lastly, with friends t' enjoy our days.

Health enough to make work a pleasure; wealth enough to support your needs;
Strength enough to battle with difficulties and overcome them;
Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them;
Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished;
Charity that shall see some good in your neighbor;
Cheerfulness that shall make others glad;
Love that shall move you to be useful and helpful;
Faith that shall make real the things of God;
And hope that shall remove all anxious fears concerning the future.

The head is stately, calm, and wise,
And bears a princely part;
And down below in secret lies
The warm, impulsive heart.

The lordly head that sits above,
The heart that beats below,
Their several office plainly prove,
Their true relation show.

The head, erect, serene, and cool,
Endowed with Reason's art,
Was set aloft to guide and rule
The throbbing, wayward heart.

And from the head, as from the higher,
Comes every glorious thought;
And in the heart's transforming fire
All noble deeds are wrought.

He wrought at one great work for years;
The world passed by with lofty look:
Sometimes his eyes were dashed with tears;
Sometimes his lips with laughter shook.

His wife and child went clothed in rags,
And in a windy garret starved:
He trod his measures on the flags,
And high on heaven his music carved.

Wistful he grew but never feared;
For always on the midnight skies
His rich orchestral score appeared
In stars and zones and galaxies.

He thought to copy down his score:
The moonlight was his lamp: he said,

He whose active thoughts disdain
To be Captive to one foe,
And would break his single chain
Or else more would undergo;
Let him learn the art of me,
By new bondage to be free.

What tyrannick Mistresse dare
To one beauty love confine,
Who unbounded as the aire
All may court but none decline?
Why should we the Heart deny
As many objects as the Eye?

Wheresoe're I turn or move
A new passion doth detain me:

Wrote by Burns, while on his death-bed, to J—n R—k-n, Ayrshire, and forwarded to him immediately after the Poet's death.

He who of R—k-n sang, lies stiff and dead,
And a green grassy hillock hides his head;
Alas! Alas! a devilish change indeed.