Tell where his nameless ashes lie,
Who sighed for gold, and found it dross.
SECTION II.
The Winter Night.
1. Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign,
Dark muffled, viewed the dreary plain,
While crowding thoughts, a pensive train,
Rose in my soul,-
When on my ear this plaintive strain
Slow, solemn, stole:-
2" Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!
And freeze, thou bitter, biting frost!
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!
Not all your rage, as now united, shows
More hard unkindness, unrelenting
Vengeful malice, unrepenting,
Than heaven-illumin'd man on brother man bestows!
3. See stern oppression's iron grip,
Or mad ambition's gory hand,
Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip,
Wo, want, and murder o'er a land!
4. Even in the peaceful rural vale,
Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale,
How pampered luxury,-flattery by her side,
The parasite empoisoning her ear,
With all the servile wretches in the rear,-
Looks o'er proud property, extended wide,
And eyes the simple rustic hind,
Whose toil upholds the glittering show,-
A creature of another kind,
Some coarser substance, unrefined,
Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below.
5. Where, where is love's fond, tender throe, With lordly honor's lofty brow,
The powers you proudly own? Is there, beneath love's noble name, Can harbor, dark, the selfish aim, To bless himself alone?
1 in hade of down
6. O ye! wno, in
Feel not a want but what yourselves create,
Think for a moment on his wretched fate
Whom friends and fortune quite disown!
Ill satisfied keen nature's clamorous call,
Stretched on his straw he lays himself to sleep,
While through the ragged roof and chinky wall,
Chill, o'er his slumbers, piles the drifty heap
7. Think on the dungeon's grim confine,
Where guilt and poor misfortune pine!
Guilt, erring man relenting view!-
But shall thy legal rage pursue
The wretch, already crushed low
By cruel fortune's undeserved blow?
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress,
A brother to relieve how exquisite the bliss!"
8. I heard no more; for Chanticleer
Shook off the powdery snow,
And hailed the morning with a cheer,
A cottage rousing crow.
But deep this truth impressed my mind
Through all his works abroad,
The heart benevolent and kind
The most resembles God.
The Cotter's Saturday Night, or a Scottish Peasant's Family
1. THE frugal supper done, with cheerful face,
They round the fireside form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er with patriarchal grace,
The sacred Bible once his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His hoary locks displaying, thin and bare,
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He seeks a portion with judicious care;
And "Let us worship God," he says with solemn air.
2. 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 beats the heav'nward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays :
tills are tame,
The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise,
Nor unison have they with our Creator's praise.
3. The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abra'm 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 heav'n the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head:
How his first followers and servants sped;
The 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 Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.
5. 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.
3. Compar'd with this, how poor religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method, and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart!
The pow'r incens'd 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 enroll.
7. From scene's like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad; Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, "An honest man's the noblest work of God;" And certain, in fair virtue's heav'nly 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 most vile, in wickedness refin'd!-Burns.
The Burial of Sir John Moore.
1. Nor a drum was heard, nor a funeral note,
As his corse o'er the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot,
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
2. We buried him darkly, at dead of night,
The sod with our bayonets turning,
By the trembling moon-beams' misty light,
And our lantern dimly burning.
3. No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet, nor in shroud we bound him;
But he lay-like a warrior taking his rest,
His martial cloak wrapt around him.
4. Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And bitterly thought of the morrow.
5. We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smooth'd down his lowly pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we, far away o'er the billow.
6. Lightly they'll speak of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;
But little he'll reck if they let him sleep on,
In the grave where his comrades have laid him.
7. Not the half of our heavy task was done,
When the bell toll'd the hour for retiring;
And we heard, too, the distant random gun,
That the foe was then suddenly firing.
8. Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carv'd not a line, we rais'd not a stone,
But we left him alone-with his glory.
"Earth to Earth, and Dust to Dust.”
"EARTH to earth, and dust to dust!" Here the evil and the just,
Here the youthful and the old,
Here the fearful and the bold,
Here the matron and the maid
In one silent bed are laid;
Here the vassal and the king
Side by side lie withering;
Here the sword and scepter rust-
"Earth to earth, and dust to dust."
2. Age on age shall roll along
O'er this pale and mighty throng;
Those that wept them, those that weep,
All shall with these sleepers sleep.
Brothers, sisters of the worm,
Summer's sun or winter's storm,
Song of peace or battle's roar,
Ne'er shall break their slumbers more:
Death shall keep his sullen trust-
"Earth to earth, and dust to dust!"
3. But a day is coming fast,
Earth, thy mightiest and thy last!
It shall come in fear and wonder,
Heralded with trump and thunder;
It shall come in strife and toil;
It shall come in blood and spoil;
It shall come in empires' groans,
Burning temples, trampled thrones:
Then, ambition, rue thy lust !-
"Earth to earth, and dust to dust!??
4. Then shall come the judgment sign,
In the East the KING shall shine,
Flashing from heaven's golden gate,
Thousand thousands round his state,
Spirits with the crown and plume;
Tremble then, thou sullen tomb!
Heaven shall open on our sight,
Earth be turned to living light-
Kingdom of the ransomed just-
"Earth to earth, and dust to dust!"
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