But thou, who own'st that earthy bed, Ah! what will every dirge avail; Or tears, which love and pity shed, That mourn beneath the gliding sail? 24 Yet lives there one whose heedless eye But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide 28 Now waft me from the green hill's side And see-the fairy valleys fade; Dun night has veiled the solemn view! Yet once again, dear parted shade, Meek Nature's child, again adieu! 36 Thy genial meads, assigned to bless Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom; There hinds and shepherd-girls shall dress With simple hands thy rural tomb. Long, long, thy stone and pointed clay 1749. 40 44 William Collins. ELEGY ON CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON O DEATH! thou tyrant fell and bloody! The meikle Devil wi' a woodie Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie O'er hurcheon hides, And like stock-fish come o'er his studdie Wi' thy auld sides! He 's gane, he 's gane! he 's frae us torn, Thee, Matthew, Nature's sel' shall mourn Where, haply, pity strays forlorn, Frae man exiled. Ye hills, near neebors o' the starns, That proudly cock your cresting cairns! Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns, Where echo slumbers! Come join ye, Nature's sturdiest bairns, Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens! Ye hazelly shaws and briery dens! 6 12 18 Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens, Wi' toddlin' din, Or foaming, strang, wi' hasty stens, Mourn, little harebells o'er the lea, Ye roses on your thorny tree, The first o' flowers! At dawn, when every grassy blade At even, when beans their fragrance shed, Ye maukins whiddin through the glade, Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood; And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood; He's gane forever! Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals; Ye fisher herons, watching eels; Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels Circling the lake; Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels, 24 30 36 42 Mourn, clamoring craiks, at close o' day, Tell thae far warlds wha lies in clay, Ye houlets, frae your ivy bower, What time the moon, wi' silent glower, Wail thro' the dreary midnight hour O rivers, forests, hills and plains! Oft have ye heard my canty strains: what else for me remains But now, But tales of wo? And frae my een the drapping rains Mourn, Spring, thou darling of the year! Thou, Simmer, while each corny spear Thy gay green flowery tresses shear, Thou Autumn, wi' thy yellow hair, In grief thy sallow mantle tear! Thou, Winter, hurling through the air 54 60 66 72 The roaring blast, Wide o'er the naked world declare The worth we 've lost. Mourn him, thou sun, great source of light! For thro' your orbs he 's ta'en his flight, O Henderson, the man! the brother! And art thou gone, and gone forever? And hast thou crost that unknown river, Life's dreary bound? Like thee where shall I find another, The world around? Go to your sculptured tombs, ye great, In a' the tinsel trash o' state! But by thy honest turf I'll wait, Thou man of worth! And weep the ae best fellow's fate 1793. Robert Burns. 84 90 96 |