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Betray fweet Jenny's unfufpecting youth? Curfe on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth! Are Honour, Virtue, Confcience, all exil'd? Is there no Pity, no relenting Ruth,

Points to the Parents fondling o'er their Child? Then paints the ruin'd Maid, and their diftraction wild!

XI.

But now the Supper crowns their fimple board,
The healfome Porritch, chief of Scotia's food
The foup their only Hawkie does afford,

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That 'yont the hallan fnugly chows her cood ::
The dame brings forth, in complimental mood,
To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck fell,
And aft he's preft, and aft he ca's it guid;
The frugal Wifie, garrulous, will tell,

How 'twas a towmond auld fin' Lint was i' the bell l
XII.

The chearfu' Supper done, wi' ferious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The Sire turns o'er with patriarchal grace,

The big ha'-Bible, ance his Father's pride ::
His bonnet rev'rently is laid afide,

His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care;

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And let us worship GOD!' he fays, with folemn airg

XIII...

They chaunt their artless notes in fimple guife;
They tune their hearts by far the noblest aim :
Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rife,

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Or plaintive Martyrs worthy of the name; Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame, The fweeteft far of Scotia's holy lays: Compar'd with thefe, Italian thrills are tame;

The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unifon hae they with our Creator's praise.
XIV.

The prieft-like Father reads the facred page,
How Abram was the Friend of GOD on high;
Or, Mofes bade eternal warfare wage

With Amaleck's ungracious progeny ;
Or how the royal Bard did groaning lye,
Beneath the ftroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Ifaiah's wild, feraphic fire;
Or other Holy Seers that tune the facred lyre.
XV.

Perhaps the Chriftian Volume is the theme,

How guiltless blood for guilty man was fhed; How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,

Had not on Earth whereon to lay His head

How His firft followers and servants sped;

:

The Precepts fage they wrote to many a land: How he, who lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the fun a mighty Angel fland,

And heard great Bab`lun's doom pronounc'd by Heav'n's command.

XVI.

Then kneeling down to HEAVEN'S ETERNAL KING,
The Saint, the Father, and the Hufband prays:

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Hope, fprings exultant on triumphant wing *,'.

That thus they all shall meet in future days: They ever båsk in un created rays,

No more to figh or fhed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In fuch fociety, yet ftill more dear;

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

XVII.

Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,.
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion's every grace except the heart!
The Power incens'd, the Pageant will defert,
The pompous ftrain, the facerdotal ftole;
But haply in fome Cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the Soul;
And in his Book of Life the Inmates poor enroll,

XVIII.

Then homeward all take off their fev'ral way ;
The youngling Cottagers retire to reft :
The Parent pair their fecret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That He who fills the raven's clam'rous neft,

*Pope's Windfor Foreft.

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And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, Would, in the way His wisdom fees the best, For them and for their little ones provide;

But chiefly, in their hearts with Grace divine prefide.

XIX.

From fcenes like thefe old Scotia's grandeur fprings, That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,

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An honeft man's the nobleft work of God:: And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road,"

The Cottage leaves the Palace far behind : What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load, Difguifing oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of Hell, in wickednefs refin'd

XX

O Scotia! my dear, my native foil!

For whom my warmeft wifh to heaven is fent! Long may thy hardy fons of ruftic toil,

Be bleft with health, and peace, and sweet content! And, O may heaven their fimple lives prevent From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile!. Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous Populace may rise the while,

And ftand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd fle

XXI.

O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide,

That ftream'd thro' great, unhappy Wallace heart; Who dar'd to, nobly, ftem tyrannic pride,

Or nobly die, the second glorious part:
(The Patriot's God peculiarly thou art,
His friend, infpirer, guardian and reward!)
Q never, never Scotia's realm defert,

But ftill the Patriot, and the Patriot-Bard,
In bright fucceffion raife, her Ornament and guard.

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