RESPONSIO REGIS. [The King's Answer.] After our writings, Thesaurar, Gar house him now agains this Yule, TO A LADY. I. Sweet Rose of virtue and of gentleness; Delightsome Lily of every lustiness, Richest in bounty, and in beauty clear, And every virtue that is held most dear, Except only that ye are merciless. II. Into your garthe 5 this day I did pursue, There saw I flowris that fresh were of hue; Both white and red most lusty were to seen, And halesome herbis upon stalkis green; Yet leaf nor flower find could I none of rue. III. But I can not in all my wit, Sae true a sentence find of it, As say it is deceivable. IL For yesterday, I did declare III. Yesterday, fair upsprung the flowris, IV. So next to summer winter been ; LAMENT FOR THE MAKARS. WHEN HE WAS SICK. I doubt that March, with his cauld blastis [BESIDES its plaintive poetic melancholy, keen, Has slain this gentle herb, that I of mean, Whose piteous death does to my heart sic pain, That I would make to plant his root again, So comfortand his leavis unto me been. OF THE CHANGES ON LIFE. I. I seek about this world unstable, To find ane sentence conveneable, 1 Possession. 2 Gray. 3 Trappings. 5 Garden. 4 Goodness 6 Fear. 11. 1 Unknown otherwise. 6 Whispered, called; Heilie harlots on hawtane wise,7 2 See under Hucheon. passage doubtful. 7 Dunbar's contemporary and friend : no poems preserved. 4 See under Henry the 8 No one of his Minstrel. poems are preserved. Come in with mony sundry guise, But yet leuch? never Mahoun, As the rival of Dunbar in the famous "Flyting," an interest has attached to the name of Walter Kennedy which none of the few other poems that are ascribed to him serve to increase. His share of the "Flyting "-about twothirds of the whole piece-may be said to be quite equal to that of Dunbar, and is the best test that we possess of his skill in the use of his poetic weapons. By their contemporary, Gavin Douglas, and their successor Lindsay, Kennedy is ranked at least equal to, if not higher 5 The sixth son of Lord Kennedy, of Cassillis and Dunure.-Paterson's Life and Poems of Dunbar, 1860. |