English

SCENE , The TOWN.

Now darkness blackens a' the streets;
The rowan e'e nae object meets,
Save yon caul' cawsey lamp,
That has surviv'd the dreary Night,
An' lanely beams wi' blinkin' light,
Right desolate an' damp.

Fore-doors an' winnocks still are steeket,
An' Cats, wi' silent step, and sleeket,
Watch whare the Rattons tirl;
Or met in yards, like squads o' Witches,
Rive ither's hair out wi' their clutches,
An' screech wi' eldritch skirl.

When first the canon from her gaping throte,
Against the heauen her roaring sulphure shote,
Ioue wak'ned with the noyce, and ask'd with wonder,
What mortall wight had stollen from him his thunder:
His christall towres hee fear'd; but fire and aire
So deepe did stay the ball from mounting there.

Dametas dream'd he saw his wife at sport,
And found that sight was through the hornie port.

The black wolf waited for my pretty Lamb,
Watching some careless hour to seize his prey,
I traced his lurking footsteps every where,
Nor dared to gather hope from his delay.

The little one was loath to leave her play,
And mocked with smiles the mournful looks of each;
Wildly she thrust the arm of help away,
And, faint in breath, grew wayward in her speech.

The mother could not weep and durst not pray,
Knowing what grief can happen here below:
She calmed herself in spasms, envying most

In peticote of greene,
Her haire about her eine,
Phillis beneath an oake
Sate milking her faire flocke:
Among that strained moysture, rare delight!
Her hand seem'd milke in milke, it was so white.

O sight too dearely bought!
Shee sleepes, and though those eyes,
Which lighten Cupid's skies,
Bee clos'd, yet such a grace
Enuironeth that place,
That I through wonder to grow faint am brought:
Sunnes, if ecclips'd yee haue such power diuine,
O! how can I endure you when yee shine?

Those eyes, deare eyes, bee spheares,
Where two bright sunnes are roll'd;
That faire hand to behold,
Of whitest snowe appeares:
Then while yee coylie stand,
To hide from mee those eyes,
Sweet, I would you aduise
To choose some other fanne than that white hand;
For if yee doe, for trueth most true this know,
That sunnes ere long must needes consume warme snow.

A SONG.

IN IMITATION OF COLIN'S COMPLAINT .

Deploring beside an old Loom,
A Weaver perplexed was laid,
And, while a bad Web was his theme,
The Breast-beam supported his head;
The Walls, that for ages had stood,
In sympathy, wept for his pain,
And the Roof, though of old rotten wood,
Remurmur'd his groans back again.

Misery is my lot,
Poverty and pain;
Ill was I begot,
Ill must I remain;
Yet the wretched days
One sweet comfort bring,
When God whispering says,
" Sing, O singer, sing! "

Chariots rumble by,
Splashing me with mud;
Insolence see I
Fawn to royal blood;
Solace have I then
From each galling sting
In that voice again, —

The world was bleak and empty and cold,
And wretched and hopeless and very old;
God gave me a Thought — a new world grew —
The Thought re-created the world anew.