To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS. 1803.

SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH.

I SHIVER, Spirit fierce and bold,

At thought of what I now behold:

As vapours breathed from dungeons cold.
Strike pleasure dead,

So sadness comes from out the mould
Where Burns is laid.

And have I then thy bones so near,
And thou forbidden to appear?
As if it were thyself that 's here
I shrink with pain ;

And both my wishes and my fear
Alike are vain.

Off weight

nor press on weight!

away

1803.

Dark thoughts! they came, but not to stay;

With chastened feelings would I pay

The tribute due

To him, and aught that hides his clay
From mortal view.

Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth
He sang, his genius "glinted" forth,
Rose like a star that touching earth,

For so it seems,

Doth glorify its humble birth

With matchless beams.

5

10

15

20

The piercing eye, the thoughtful brow,

The struggling heart, where be they now? -
Full soon the Aspirant of the plough,

The prompt, the brave,

Slept, with the obscurest, in the low

I mourned with thousands, but as one
More deeply grieved, for He was gone
Whose light I hailed when first it shone,
And showed my youth

25

30

How Verse may build a princely throne
On humble truth.

35

Alas! where'er the current tends,

Regret pursues and with it blends, -
Huge Criffel's hoary top ascends
By Skiddaw seen,

Neighbours we were, and loving friends
We might have been ;

What treasures would have then been placed
Within my reach; of knowledge graced

By fancy what a rich repast!

But why go on?

Oh! spare to sweep, thou mournful blast,

His grave grass-grown.

55

60

There, too, a Son, his joy and pride,

(Not three weeks past the Stripling died,)

THOUGHTS

SUGGESTED THE DAY FOLLOWING, ON THE BANKS OF NITH,
NEAR THE POET'S RESIDENCE.

Too frail to keep the lofty vow

That must have followed when his brow

Was wreathed

९९

The Vision" tells us how

5

With holly spray,

He faltered, drifted to and fro,

And passed away.

Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng

Our minds when, lingering all too long,

Over the grave of Burns we hung

In social grief

Indulged as if it were a wrong

To seek relief.

But, leaving each unquiet theme

Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,.

And prompt to welcome every gleam

Of good and fair,

Let us beside this limpid Stream

Breathe hopeful air.

Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight;
Think rather of those moments bright
When to the consciousness of right

His course was true,

When Wisdom prospered in his sight
And virtue grew.

Yes, freely let our hearts expand,

IO

15

20

25

Freely as in youth's season bland,

When side by side, his Book in hand,

172

Through busiest street and loneliest glen
Are felt the flashes of his pen ;

He rules 'mid winter snows, and when

Bees fill their hives;

Deep in the general heart of men

power survives.

45

His