Let not Ambition mock their ufeful toil, GRAY. With honeft pride, I fcorn each selfish end, My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise : To you I fing, in fimple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life's fequefter'd scene; The native feelings ftrong, the guileless ways; What A**** in a Cottage would have been ; Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween! II. November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; The fhort'ning winter-day is near a clofe; The miry beafts retreating frae the pleugh; The black'ning trains o'craws to their repofe : The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects Collects his fpades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his courfe does hameward bend. III. At length his lonely Cot appears in view, To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnily, His clean hearth-ftane, his thriftie Wife's fmile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil. A 2 IV. (4) IV. Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in, At fervice out, amang the Farmers roun'; Some ca' the pleugh, fome herd, fome tentie rin A cannie errand to a neebor town: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,` In youthfu' bloom, Love fparkling in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps, to fhew a braw new gown, Or depofite her fair-won penny-fee, To help her Parents dear, if they in hardship be. V. Wi' joy unfeign'd brothers and fifters meet, An' each for other's weelfare kindly fpeirs: The |