But first hang out, that she'll discern
Your hymeneal charter,

Then heave aboard your grapple airn,

An', large upo' her quarter,

Come full that day.

XIV.

Ye, lastly, bonie blossoms a',

Ye royal lasses dainty,

Heav'n mak you guid as weel as braw,
An' gie you lads a-plenty :
But sneer nae British boys awa',
For kings are unco scant ay;
An' German gentles are but sma',
They're better just than want ay
On onie day.

XV.

God bless you a'! consider now,
Ye're unco muckle dautet;
But ere the course o' life be thro',
It may be bitter sautet:
An' I hae seen their coggie fou,
That yet hae tarrow't at it;

But or the day was done, I trow,

The laggen they hae clautet

Fu' clean that day.

THE

THE

VISION.

DUAN FIRST.*

THE sun had clos'd the winter day,
The curlers quat their roaring play,
An' hunger'd maukin ta'en her way

To kail-yards green,

While faithless snaws ilk step betray
Whare she has been.

The

* Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See his Cath-Loda, vol. ii. of McPherson's translation.

The thresher's weary flingin tree
The lee-lang day had tired me;

And whan the day had clos'd his e'e,
Far i' the west,

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

There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek,
I sat and ey'd the spewing reek,
That fill'd, 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 mus'd 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 an' clarkit

My cash-account:

While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit,

Is a' th' amount.

I started,

I started, mutt'ring, blockhead! coof!
And heav'd 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-form'd, was crusht; I glowr'd 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,

Wou'd soon been broken.

A hair

A hair-brain'd, sentimental trace'
Was strongly marked in her face;
A wildly-witty, rustic grace

Shone full upon her;

Her eye, ev'n turn'd on empty space,

Beam'd keen with honor.

Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen, 'Till half a leg was scrimply seen;

And such a leg! my bonie Jean

Could only peer it;

Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean,
Nane else came near it.

Her mantle large, of greenish hue, My gazing wonder chiefly drew; Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw A lustre grand;

And seem'd, to my astonish'd view,

A well known land.

Here, rivers in the sea were lost; There, mountains to the skies were tost: Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast, With surging foam; There, distant shone Art's lofty boast,

The lordly dome.

Here,