As youth and love with sprightly dance,
Beneath thy morning star advance,
Pleasure with her siren air

May delude the thoughtless pair;
Let prudence bless enjoyment's cup.
Then raptur'd sip, and sip it up.

As thy day grows warm and high, Life's meridian flaming nigh,

Dost thou spurn the humble vale?

Life's proud summits would'st thou scale?
Check thy climbing step, elate,

Evils lurk in felon wait:

Dangers, eagle-pinion'd, bold,

Soar around each cliffy hold,

While cheerful peace, with linnet song,
Chants the lowly dells among.

As the shades of ev'ning close, Beck'ning thee to long repose; As life itself becomes disease, Seek the chimney-neuk of ease,

There ruminate with sober thought,

On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought;
And teach the sportive younkers round,

Saws of experience, sage and sound.
Say, man's true, genuine estimate,
The grand criterion of his fate,
Is not, Art thou high or low?
Did thy fortune ebb or flow?

Did many talents gild thy span ?
Or frugal nature grudge thee one?
Tell them, and press it on their mind,
As thou thyself must shortly find,
The smile or frown of awful Heav'n,
To virtue or to vice is giv'n.
Say, to be just, and kind, and wise,
There solid self-enjoyment lies;
That foolish, selfish, faithless ways,
Lead to the wretched, vile, and base.

Thus resign'd and quiet, creep
To the bed of lasting sleep;

Sleep, whence thou shall ne'er awake,
Night, where dawn shall never break.
"Till future life, future no more,
To light and joy the good restore,
To light and joy unknown before.

Stranger, go! Heav'n be thy guide! Quod the beadsman of Nith-side.

ODE,

ODE,

SACRED TO THE MEMORY

OF

MRS.

OF

DWELLER in yon dungeon dark,
Hangman of creation! mark
Who in widow-weeds appears,
Laden with unhonoured years,
Noosing with care a bursting purse,
Baited with many a deadly curse!

STROPHE.

STROPHE.

View the wither'd beldam's face-
Can thy keen inspection trace

Aught of humanity's sweet melting grace?
Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows,

Pity's flood there never rose.

See those hands, ne'er stretch'd to save,
Hands that took-but never gave.
Keeper of Mammon's iron chest.

Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest
goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!

She

}

ANTISTROPHE.

Plunderer of armies, lift thine eyes, (A while forbear, ye tort'ring fiends,) Seest thou whose step, unwilling hither bends? No fallen angel, hurl'd from upper skies;

"Tis thy trusty quondam mate, Doom'd to share thy fiery fate,

She, tardy, hell-ward plies.

EPODE.

And are they of no more avail,

Ten thousand glitt'ring pounds a-year?
In other worlds can Mammon fail,
Omnipotent as he is here?

O, bitter

O, bitter mock'ry of the pompous bier,
While down the wretched vital part is driv'n!
The cave-lodg'd beggar, with a conscience clear,
Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heav'n.

ELEGY