Is there in human form that bears a heart,

A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth, That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth! Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,

Points to the parents fondling o'er their childThen paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild?

But now the supper crowns their simple board: The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food; The soup their only hawkie does afford,

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cud; The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck fell, An' aft he's pressed, an' aft he ca's it good; The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face

They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,

The big Ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride: His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets wearin' thin and bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And "Let us worship God," he says with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee's wild, warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name;
Or noble Elgin beets the heavenward flame-
The sweetest far o' Scotia's holy lays;
Compared with these Italian trills are tame;

The tickled ear no heartfelt raptures raise-
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page: How Abraham was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme: How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay His head; How his first followers and servants spedThe precepts sage they wrote to many a land; How he, who, lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down to Heaven's eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays: Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing," That thus they all shall meet in future days; There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear-
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear,
While circling time moves round in an eternal
sphere.

Compared 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, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well pleased, the language of the
soul,

And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol.

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest;
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request That He who stills the ravens' clam'rous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,

For them and for their little ones provide-But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,

That makes her loved at home, revered abroad, Princes and lords are but the breath of kings"An honest man's the noblest 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, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined!

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet

content!

And, O! may Heaven their simple 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 stand a wall of fire around their much-
loved isle.

O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart

Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride,

Or nobly die, the second glorious part—

(The patriot's God peculiarly Thou art-His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) O never, never Scotia's realm desert;

But still the patriot and the patriot bard In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

TAM O' SHANTER.1

"Of Brownyis and of Bogilis full is this Buke." GAWIN DOUGLAS.

When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

This truth fand honest Tam' o' Shanter, As he, frae Ayr, ae night did canter (Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses For honest men and bonnie lassies).

O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice! She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, A bleth'ring, blust'ring, drunken blellum; That frae November till October Ae market-day thou was na sober; That ilka melder, wi' the miller, Thou sat as lang as thou had siller; That every naig was ca'd a shoe on, The smith and thee gat roaring fou on; That at the L-d's house, ev'n on Sunday, Thou drank wi' Kirton Jean till Monday. She prophesy'd that, late or soon, Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon, Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk, By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.

"In the inimitable tale of 'Tam o' Shanter' he has left us sufficient evidence of his ability to combine the ludicrous with the awful, and even horrible. No poet, with the exception of Shakspere, ever possessed the power of exciting the most varied and discordant emotions with such rapid transitions."-Sir Walter Scott.

"To the last Burns was of opinion that 'Tam o' Shanter' was the best of all his productions; and although it does not always happen that poet and public come to the same conclusion on such points, I believe the decision in question has been all but unanimously approved of." -John Gibson Lockhart.

Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet To think how monie counsels sweet, How monie lengthened sage advices, The husband frae the wife despises!

But to our tale: ae market night Tam had got planted unco right, Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, Wi' reaming swats that drank divinely; And at his elbow souter Johnny, His ancient, trusty, drouthy cronyTam lo'ed him like a vera britherThey had been fou for weeks thegither. The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter; And ay the ale was growing better. The landlady and Tam grew gracious, Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious; The souter tauld his queerest stories; The landlord's laugh was ready chorus; The storm without might rair and rustle, Tam didna mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man sae happy, E'en drowned himself amang the nappy; As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, The minutes winged their way wi' pleasure; Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious, O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow-fall in the river,
A moment white-then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,

That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.

Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun ride-
That hour o' night's black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he takes the road in
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.

The wind blew as 'twad blaw its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed;
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed;
That night a child might understand
The deil had business on his hand.

Weel mountit on his gray mare, Mer (A better never lifted leg), Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, Despising wind, and rain, and fireWhyles holding fast his guid blue bonnet, Whyles crooning o'er some old Scots sonnet, Whyles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, Lest bogles catch him unawares;

Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Where ghaists and houlets nightly cry.

By this time he was cross the ford,
Where in the snaw the chapman smoored;
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Whare drunken Charlie brak 's neck bane;
And through the whins, and by the cairn,
Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel'.
Before him Doon pours all his floods:
The doubling storm roars through the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
Near and more near the thunders roll;
When glimmering thro' the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze;
Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing,
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquebae we'll face the devil!-

The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he car'd na deils a bodle.
But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,
She ventured forward on the light;
And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight-
Warlocks and witches in a dance:
Nae cotillion brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast-
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large-
To gie them music was his charge;
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.
Coffins stood round like open presses,
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantrip sleight
Each in its cauld hand held a light-
By which heroic Tam was able

To note upon the haly table,

A murderer's banes in gibbet airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns;
A thief, new cutted frae a rape,
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red rusted;
Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted;
A garter which a babe had strangled;
A knife a father's throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o' life bereft-
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu',
Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'.

As Tammie glower'd, amazed, and curious, The mirth and fun grew fast and furious; The piper loud and louder blew; The dancers quick and quicker flew; They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit, Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, And coost her duddies to the wark, And linkit at it in her sark.

Now Tam, O Tam! had they been queans A' plump and strapping in their teens: Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen, Been snaw-white seventeen-hunder linen; Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, That ance were plush o' guid blue hair, I wad hae gi'en them aff my hurdies, For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies!

But withered beldams auld and droll, Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, Louping an' flinging on a crummockI wonder didna turn thy stomach.

But Tam kenn'd what was what fu' brawlie. There was ae winsome wench and walie, That night enlisted in the core, (Lang after kenn'd on Carrick shore: For monie a beast to dead she shot, And perish'd monie a bonnie boat, And shook baith meikle corn and bere And kept the country-side in fear), Her cutty-sark o' Paisley harn, That while a lassie she had wornIn longitude tho' sorely scanty, It was her best, and she was vauntie. Ah! little kenn'd thy reverend grannie That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches), Wad ever grac'd a dance o' witches!

But here my muse her wing maun cow'r,
Sic flights are far beyond her pow'r;
To sing how Nannie lap and flang,
(A souple jade she was and strang);
And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch'd,

And thought his very een enrich'd.
Ev'n Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain,
And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main,
Till first ae caper, syne anither-
Tam tint his reason a' thegither,
And roars out, Weel done, Cutty sark!
And in an instant all was dark;
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.

As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie's mortal foes,

When pop! she starts before their nose;