As eager runs the market crowd,
When Catch the thief! resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs-the witches follow,
Wi' monie an eldritch skreech and hollow.

Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'lt get thy fairin'!
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin'-
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stanel of the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss-
A running stream they darena cross.
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake;
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie's mettle-
Ae spring brought aff her master hale,
But left behind her ain gray tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother's son, tak heed;
Whene'er to drink you are inclined,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think, ye may buy the joys owre dear –
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare.

THE VISION.

DUAN FIRST. 2

The sun had closed the winter day, The curlers quat their roaring play, An' hungered maukin ta'en her way To kail-yards green,

While faithless snaws ilk step betray Whar she has been.

The thresher's weary flingin'-tree
The lee-lang day had tired me;
And whan the day had closed his ee,
Far i' the west,

Ben i' the spence right pensivelie
I gaed to rest.

1 It is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any farther than the middle of the next running stream. It may be proper likewise to mention to the benighted traveller, that when he falls in with bogles, whatever danger there may be in his going forward, there is much more hazard in turning back.

2 Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions. of a digressive poem. See his "Cath-Loda" of Macpherson's translation.

There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek,
I sat and eyed the spewing reek,
That filled, wi' hoast-provoking smeek,
The auld clay biggin';

An' heard the restless rattons squeak
About the riggin'.

All in this mottie, misty clime,
I backward mused on wasted time-
How I had spent my youthfu' prime,
An' done nae thing

But stringin' blethers up in rhyme,
For fools to sing.

Had I to guid advice but harkit,

I might, by this, hae led a market,
Or strutted in a bank and clarkit
My cash-account;
While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit,
Is a' th' amount.

I started, muttering, "Blockhead! coof!"
And heaved on high my waukit loof,
To swear by a' yon starry roof,

Or some rash aith,
That I, henceforth, would be rhyme-proof
Till my last breath-

When click! the string the snick did draw;
And jee! the door gaed to the wa';
An' by my ingle lowe I saw,
Now bleezin' bright,

A tight outlandish hizzie braw,
Come full in sight.

Ye need na doubt I held my whisht-
The infant aith, half-formed, was crusht,
I glowered as eerie's I'd been dusht
In some wild glen,

When sweet, like modest worth, she blusht,
And stepped ben.

Green, slender, leaf-clad holly boughs Were twisted, gracefu', round her brows;

I took her for some Scottish muse

By that same token,

An' come to stop those reckless vows, Would soon been broken.

A "hair-brained sentimental trace"
Was strongly marked in her face;
A wildy-witty, rustic grace

Shone full upon her;
Her eye, ev'n turned on empty space,
Beamed keen with honour.

Down flowed her robe, a tartan sheen, Till half a leg was scrimply seen;

Here rivers in the sea were lost;
There mountains to the skies were tost;
Here tumbling billows marked the coast
With surging foam;

There distant shone art's lofty boast,
The lordly dome.

Here Doon poured down his far-fetched floods;
There well-fed Irwine stately thuds;
Auld hermit Ayr staw thro' his woods,
On to the shore;

And many a lesser torrent scuds,
With seeming roar.

Low, in a sandy valley spread,
An ancient borough reared her head;
Still, as in Scottish story read,

She boasts a race

To every nobler virtue bred,

And polished grace.

By stately tower or palace fair,

Or ruins pendent in the air,

Bold stems of heroes, here and there,

I could discern;

Some seemed to muse-some seemed to dare, With feature stern.

My heart did glowing transport feel,

To see a race1 heroic wheel,

And brandish round the deep-dyed steel

In sturdy blows;

While back-recoiling seemed to reel
Their Southron foes.

His Country's Saviour,2 mark him well!
Bold Richardton's3 heroic swell;
The chief on Sark4 who glorious fell,
In high command;

And he whom ruthless fates expel
His native land.

1 The Wallaces.

2 Sir William Wallace.

3 Adam Wallace of Richardton, cousin to the immortal preserver of Scottish independence.

♦ Wallace, laird of Craigie, who was second in command under Douglas, Earl of Ormond, at the famous battle on the banks of Sark, fought ano 1448. That glorious victory was principally owing to the judicious

There, where a sceptered Pictish shade
Stalked round his ashes lowly laid,
I marked a martial race, portrayed
In colours strong;

Bold, soldier-featured, undismayed,
They strode along.

Through many a wild romantic grove,
Near many a hermit-fancied cove
(Fit haunts for friendship or for love),
In musing mood,

An aged judge, I saw him rove,
Dispensing good."

With deep-struck reverential awe
The learned sire and son I saw;
To nature's God and nature's law
They gave their lore;
This, all its source and end to draw-
That, to adore.7

Brydone's brave wards I well could spy
Beneath old Scotia's smiling eye,
Who called on Fame, low standing by,
To hand him on

Where many a patriot name on high,
And hero shone.

DUAN SECOND.

With musing deep, astonished stare,
I viewed the heavenly-seeming fair;
A whispering throb did witness bear
Of kindred sweet,

When, with an elder sister's air,
She did me greet:-

"All hail! my own inspired bard,
In me thy native muse regard;
Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard,
Thus poorly low!

I come to give thee such reward
As we bestow.

"Know the great genius of this land
Has many a light aerial band,
Who, all beneath his high command,
Harmoniously,

5

conduct and intrepid valour of the gallant laird of Craigie, who died of his wounds after the action.

5 Coilus, king of the Picts, from whom the district of Kyle is said to take its name, lies buried, as tradition says, near the family seat of the Montgomeries of Coilsfield, where his burial place is still shown.

6 Barskimming and its proprietor Thomas Miller, lord justice-clerk, were here in the poet's eye. - ED.

7 Dr. Matthew Stewart the mathematician, and his son Dugald Stewart the metaphysician, are here meant. -ED.

8 Colonel Fullarton,

As arts or arms they understand, Their labours ply.

"They Scotia's race among them share:
Some fire the soldier on to dare;
Some rouse the patriot up to bare
Corruption's heart;

Some teach the bard-a darling care-
The tuneful art.

"Mong swelling floods of reeking gore
They ardent, kindling spirits pour;
Or 'mid the venal senate's roar
They, sightless, stand,
To mend the honest patriot lore,
And grace the land.

"And when the bard, or hoary sage,
Charm or instruct the future age,
They bind the wild poetic rage
In energy,

Or point the inconclusive page
Full on the eye.

"Hence Fullarton, the brave and young;
Hence Dempster's zeal-inspired tongue;
Hence sweet harmonious Beattie sung
His minstrel lays;

Or tore, with noble ardour stung,
The sceptic's bays.

"To lower orders are assigned

The humbler ranks of human kind;
The rustic bard, the lab'ring hind,
The artisan-

All choose, as various they're inclined,
The various man.

"When yellow waves the heavy grain, The threat'ning storm some strongly rein; Some teach to meliorate the plain

With tillage skill;

And some instruct the shepherd train,
Blythe o'er the hill.

"Some hint the lover's harmless wile;
Some grace the maiden's artless smile;
Some soothe the lab'rer's weary toil
For humble gains,
And make his cottage-scenes beguile
His cares and pains.

"Some, bounded to a district-space,
Explore at large man's infant race,
To mark the embryotic trace

Of rustic bard; And careful note each op'ning graceA guide and guard.

"Of these am I-Coila my name; And this district as mine I claim,

Where once the Campbells,1 chiefs of fame,
Held ruling pow'r;

I marked thy embryo tuneful flame,
Thy natal hour.

"With future hope I oft would gaze,
Fond, on thy little early ways,
Thy rudely carolled, chiming phrase
In uncouth rhymes,
Fired at the simple artless lays
Of other times.

"I saw thee seek the sounding shore,
Delighted with the dashing roar;
Or when the North his fleecy store
Drove through the sky,

I saw grim Nature's visage hoar
Struck thy young eye.

"Or when the deep green-mantled earth
Warm cherished every flow'ret's birth,
And joy and music pouring forth
In every grove,

I saw thee eye the general mirth
With boundless love.

"When ripened fields and azure skies
Called forth the reaper's rustling noise,
I saw thee leave their evening joys,
And lonely stalk

To vent thy bosom's swelling rise
In pensive walk.

"When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong,
Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along,
Those accents grateful to thy tongue,
Th' adored name,

I taught thee how to pour in song,
To sooth thy flame.

"I saw thy palse's maddening play
Wild send thee pleasure's devious way,
Misled by fancy's meteor ray,
By passion driven;

But yet the light that led astray

Was light from Heaven. 2

"I taught thy manners-painting strains,
The loves, the ways of simple swains-
Till now, 'er all my wide domains
Thy fame extends,

And some, the pride of Coila's plains,
Become thy friends.

The Loudon branch of the Campbells.

2 Of strains like the above, solemn and sublime with that rapt and inspired melancholy in which the poet lifts his eye above this visible diurnal sphere," the poems entitled" Despondency," "The Lament," "Winter: a Dirge," md the invocation "To Ruin," afford no less striking examples.-Henry Mackenzie.

By wood and wild, 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,
My wailing numbers!

Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens!
Ye haz'lly shaws and briery dens!
Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens,
Wi' todlin' din,

Or foaming strang, wi' hasty stens,
Frae linn to linn.

Mourn, little harebells owre the lea;
Ye stately foxgloves fair to see;
Ye woodbines hanging bonnilie,
In scented bowers;

Ye roses on your thorny tree,
The first o' flowers!

At dawn, when every grassy blade
Droops with a diamond at his head,
At ev'n, when beans their fragrance shed
I' th' rustling gale,

Ye maukins, whiddin' through the glade,
Come, join my wail!

Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood;
Ye grouse that crap the heather bud;
Ye curlews calling through a clud;
Ye whistling plover;
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,
Rair for his sake!

Mourn, clam'ring craiks, at close o' day,
'Mang fields o' flow'ring clover gay!
And when ye wing your annual way
Frae our cauld shore,

Tell thae far warlds wha lies in clay,
Wham we deplore.

Ye howlets, frae your ivy bow'r,
In some auld tree, or eldritch tow'r,
What time the moon, wi' silent glow'r,
Sets up her horn,
Wail through the dreary midnight hour
Till waukrife morn!

O rivers, forests, hills, and plains! Oft have ye heard my cantie strains; But now, what else for me remains But tales of woe;

And frae my een the drapping rains Maun ever flow!

Mourn, Spring, thou darling of the year!
Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear;
Thou, Simmer, while each corny spear
Shoots up its head,

Thy gay, green, flow'ring tresses shear,
For him that's dead!

Thou, Autumn, wi' thy yellow hair,
In grief thy sallow mantle tear!
Thou, Winter, hurling through the air
The roaring blast,

Wide o'er the naked world declare

The worth we've lost!

Mourn him, thou Sun, great source of light!
Mourn, empress of the silent night!
And you, ye twinkling starnies bright,
My Matthew mourn!

For through your orbs he's ta'en his flight,
Ne'er to return.

O Henderson! the man! the brother!
And art thou gone, and gone for ever?
And hast thou crossed 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
E'er lay in earth.

HALLOWEEN.1

"Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
The simple pleasures of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art.”
GOLDSMITH.

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassillis Downans2 dance,

1 This beautiful poem was probably suggested to Burns by one on the same subject from the pen of John Mayne, which appeared in print five years before his own, written in 1785.--ED.

2 Certain little, romantic, rocky, green hills in the

Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colzean the route is ta'en,

Beneath the moon's pale beams,
There, up the cove,3 to stray an' rove
Amang the rocks and streams
To sport that night.

Amang the bonnie winding banks

Where Doon rins, wimplin', clear,
Where Bruce1 ance ruled the martial ranks
And shook his Carrick spear,
Some merry, friendly, countra folks,
Together did convene,

To burn their nits, an' pou their stocks,
An' haud their Halloween'
Fu' blythe that night.

The lasses feat, an' cleanly neat,

Mair braw than whan they're fine; Their faces blythe, fu' sweetly kythe Hearts leal, an' warm, an' kin'; The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs

Weel knotted on their garten,
Some unco blate, an' some wi' gabs
Gar lasses' hearts gang startin'
Whiles fast at night.

Then, first and foremost, thro' the kail,
Their stocks6 maun a' be sought ance;
They steek their een, an' graip an' wale
For muckle anes an' straught anes.
Poor hav'rel Will fell aff the drift,

An' wandered through the bow-kail, neighbourhood of the ancient seat of the Earls of Cas

3 A noted cavern near Colzean House, called the Cove of Colzean, which, as Cassillis Downans, is famed in country story for being a favourite haunt of fairies.

4 The famous family of that name, the ancestors of Robert, the great deliverer of his country, were Earls of Carrick.

5 Halloween is thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other mischief-making beings are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands; particularly those aerial people, the fairies, are said on that night to hold a grand anniversary.

The first ceremony of Halloween is pulling each a stock or plant of kail. They must go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with: its being big or little, straight or crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all their spells -the husband or wife. If any yird or earth stick to the root, that is tocher or fortune; and the taste of the custoc, that is, the heart of the stem, is indicative of the natural temper and disposition. Lastly, the stems, or to give them their ordinary appellation, the runts, are placed somewhere above the head of the door; and the Christian names of the people whom chance brings into the house, are, according to the priority of placing the runts, the names in question.