English

Deep Sighs, Records of my unpitied Grief,
Memorials of my true, though hopeless Love,
Keep time with my sad thoughts, till wish'd Relief
My long despairs for vain and causless prove.

Yet if such hap never to you befall,
I give you leave, break time, break heart and all.

FROM A BROTHER SKELETON .

A loft to high Parnassus' hill,
I heard thy pray'r ascending swift;
And are the Nine propitious still
To grant thy wish, and send the Gift?
Has kind Apollo made a shift,
To roll down from his kitchen high
A sirloin huge — a smoking lift,
To feed thy keen devouring eye?

If so, O much respected Swain!
Thou'rt surely Phaebus, fav'rite Bard;

If for one only horne
Which nature to him gaue,
So famous is the noble vnicorne,
What praise should that man haue,
Whose head a ladie braue
Doth with a goodlie paire at once adorne?

Whene'er I close the door at night,
And turn the creaking key about,
A pang renewed assails my heart —
I think, my darling is shut out.

Think that, beneath these starry skies,
He wanders, with his little feet;
The pines stand, hushed in glad surprise,
The garden yields its tribute sweet.

Thro' every well-known path and nook
I see his angel footsteps glide,
As guileless as the Pascal Lamb
That kept the Infant Saviour's side.

His earnest eye, perhaps, can pierce
The gloom in which his parents sit;

When her deare bosome clips
That litle curre, which faunes to touch her lips,
Or when it is his hap
To lie lapp'd in her lap,
O! it growes noone with mee;
With hotter-pointed beames
My burning planet streames,
What rayes were earst, in lightnings changed bee.
When oft I muse, how I to those extreames
Am brought, I finde no cause, except that shee
In loue's bright zodiacke hauing trac'd each roome,
To fatall Syrius now at last is come.

How fearful 'tis to walk the sounding shore,
When low'rs the sky, and winds are piping loud!
And round the beach the tearful maidens croud,
Scar'd at the swelling surge and thunder's roar.
High o'er the cliffs the screaming Sea-mews soar,
Lost is th'adventurous bark in stormy cloud,
The shrill blast whistles through the fluttering shroud;
And lo! the gallant crew, that erst before
Secure rode tilting o'er the placid wave,
Scarce know to stem the black and boisterous main,
And view, with eyes aghast, their watery grave.

Slow sinks the glimmering beam from western sky,
The woods and hills obscur'd by Evening grey
Vanish from mortal sight, and fade away.
Now with the flocks and yearlings let me hie
To farm, or cottage lone, where, perch'd hard by
On mossy pale the Red-Breast tunes his lay,
Soft twittering, and bids farewell to day:
Then, whilst the watch-dog barks, and ploughmen lie
Lull'd by the rocking winds, let me unfold
Whate'er in rhapsody, or strain most holy,
The hoary Minstrel sang in times of old;

Is it not too too much
Thou late didst to mee proue
A basiliske of loue,
And didst my wits bewitch;
Vnlesse, to cause more harme,
Made Syrene too, thou with thy voyce mee charme?
Ah! though thou so my reason didst controule,
That to thy lookes I could not proue a mole,
Yet doe mee not that wrong,
As not to let mee turne aspe to thy song.

TO

A BROTHER PEDLAR.

Thou curious, droll, auld-farran chiel,
 Some rhyme I'se now ha'e wi' thee,
May I gang hurlin' to the De'il,
 But I'd be blythe to see thee.
'Mang a' the chiels wha bear a pack,
 Thro' kintra, town, or claughan,
The fint a ane can tell a crack,
 Whilk sets us aye a laughin',
Like thee, this day.

A snawy winter's now maist owre,
 Since we frae ither parted;

October's flood had all deform'd the lea,
And wintry blasts the forest wide had rent,
When to the Muses Bower I blithsome went:
Pass'd the dank noon away in social glee
With full Repast, and Wine, and Jollity;
But when the friendly Eve her robe had sprent
Wide o'er the Meads, thither their footsteps bent,
To soften and refine our converse free,
Two nymph-like Maids, Phyllis and Chloe fair,
They, the melodious strings attuning sweet,
To Voice, and Verse divine, and Tuscan Air,