| |
| MY lord, I know your noble ear | |
| Woe ne’er assails in vain; | |
| Embolden’d thus, I beg you’ll hear | |
| Your humble slave complain, | |
| How saucy Phoebus’ scorching beams, | 5 |
| In flaming summer-pride, | |
| Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams, | |
| And drink my crystal tide. 1 | |
| |
| The lightly-jumping, glowrin’ trouts, | |
| That thro’ my waters play, | 10 |
| If, in their random, wanton spouts, | |
| They near the margin stray; | |
| If, hapless chance! they linger lang, | |
| I’m scorching up so shallow, | |
| They’re left the whitening stanes amang, | 15 |
| In gasping death to wallow. | |
| |
| Last day I grat wi’ spite and teen, | |
| As poet Burns came by. | |
| That, to a bard, I should be seen | |
| Wi’ half my channel dry; | 20 |
| A panegyric rhyme, I ween, | |
| Ev’n as I was, he shor’d me; | |
| But had I in my glory been, | |
| He, kneeling, wad ador’d me. | |
| |
| Here, foaming down the skelvy rocks, | 25 |
| In twisting strength I rin; | |
| There, high my boiling torrent smokes, | |
| Wild-roaring o’er a linn: | |
| Enjoying each large spring and well, | |
| As Nature gave them me, | 30 |
| I am, altho’ I say’t mysel’, | |
| Worth gaun a mile to see. | |
| |
| Would then my noble master please | |
| To grant my highest wishes, | |
| He’ll shade my banks wi’ tow’ring trees, | 35 |
| And bonie spreading bushes. | |
| Delighted doubly then, my lord, | |
| You’ll wander on my banks, | |
| And listen mony a grateful bird | |
| Return you tuneful thanks. | 40 |
| |
| The sober lav’rock, warbling wild, | |
| Shall to the skies aspire; | |
| The gowdspink, Music’s gayest child, | |
| Shall sweetly join the choir; | |
| The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear, | 45 |
| The mavis mild and mellow; | |
| The robin pensive Autumn cheer, | |
| In all her locks of yellow. | |
| |
| This, too, a covert shall ensure, | |
| To shield them from the storm; | 50 |
| And coward maukin sleep secure, | |
| Low in her grassy form: | |
| Here shall the shepherd make his seat, | |
| To weave his crown of flow’rs; | |
| Or find a shelt’ring, safe retreat, | 55 |
| From prone-descending show’rs. | |
| |
| And here, by sweet, endearing stealth, | |
| Shall meet the loving pair, | |
| Despising worlds, with all their wealth, | |
| As empty idle care; | 60 |
| The flow’rs shall vie in all their charms, | |
| The hour of heav’n to grace; | |
| And birks extend their fragrant arms | |
| To screen the dear embrace. | |
| |
| Here haply too, at vernal dawn, | 65 |
| Some musing bard may stray, | |
| And eye the smoking, dewy lawn, | |
| And misty mountain grey; | |
| Or, by the reaper’s nightly beam, | |
| Mild-chequering thro’ the trees, | 70 |
| Rave to my darkly dashing stream, | |
| Hoarse-swelling on the breeze. | |
| |
| Let lofty firs, and ashes cool, | |
| My lowly banks o’erspread, | |
| And view, deep-bending in the pool, | 75 |
| Their shadow’s wat’ry bed: | |
| Let fragrant birks, in woodbines drest, | |
| My craggy cliffs adorn; | |
| And, for the little songster’s nest, | |
| The close embow’ring thorn. | 80 |
| |
| So may old Scotia’s darling hope, | |
| Your little angel band | |
| Spring, like their fathers, up to prop | |
| Their honour’d native land! | |
| So may, thro’ Albion’s farthest ken, | 85 |
| To social-flowing glasses, | |
| The grace be—“Athole’s honest men, | |
| And Athole’s bonie lasses!” | |
