My honor'd Colonel, deep I feel Your interest in the Poet's weal; Ah! now sma'heart haeI to speel The steep Parnassus, Surrounded thus by bolus pill, And potion glasses. O what a canty world were it, Would pain and care and sickness spare it; And Fortune favour worthand merit As they deserve; And aye rowtho'roast-beef
Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair, And with them take the Poet's prayer, That Fate may, in her fairest page, With ev'ry kindliest, best presage Of future bliss, enroll thy name: With native worthand spotless fame, And wakeful caution, still aware Of ill-but chief, Man's felon snare; All blameless joys on earth we find, And
"Sweet closes the ev'ning on Craigieburn Wood, And blythely awaukens the morrow; But the pride o' the springin the Craigieburn Wood Can yield to me nothing but sorrow. Chorus.-Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie, And O to be lying beyond thee! O sweetly, soundly, weelmay he sleep That's laid in the bed beyond thee! I
"'Twas in the seventeen hunderyear O' grace, and ninety-five, That year I was the wae'est man Of ony man alive. In March the three-an'-twentieth morn, The sun raiseclear an'bright; But oh! I was a waefu' man, Ereto-fa'o' the night. Yerl Galloway langdid rule this land, Wi' equal right and fame, And thereto was his kinsmen
"Fy, let us a'to Kirkcudbright, For there will be bickerin' there; For Murray's light horse are to muster, And O how the heroes will swear! And there will be Murray, Commander, And Gordon, the battle to win; Like brothers they'll stand by each other, Sae knit in alliance and kin. And there will be black-nebbitJohnie,
"Stop, passenger! my story's brief, And truth I shall relate, man; I tell naecommon tale o' grief, For Matthew was a great man. If thou uncommon merit hast, Yet spurn'd at Fortune's door, man; A look of pity hither cast, For Matthew was a poor man. If thou a noble sodgerart, That passest bythis grave,
"Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie, Now tired with wandering, haudawahame; Come to my bosom, my aeonly dearie, And tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. Loud blew the cauldwinter winds at our parting; It was nathe blast brought the tear in my e'e: Now welcome the Simmer, and welcome my Willie, The
"The night was still, and o'er the hill The moon shone on the castle wa'; The mavissang, while dew-drops hang Around her on the castle wa'; Saemerrily they danced the ring Fraeeenin' tillthe cockdid craw; And aye the o'erwordo'the spring Was ""Irvine's bairns are boniea'."""