When in summer's noon I faint, At the starless midnight hour, And thunders rend the howling air, Listening to the doubling roar, Peace, thy olive wand extend, Fill my sailor's welcome sails, To my arms their charge convey, My dear lad that's far away. Burns was a zealous lover of his country, and has stamped his patriotic feelings on many a lasting verse. He was dazzled indeed with the first bright outburst of the French Revolution, and hailed in common with millions of men the fabric of an old and formidable despotism, crumbled at the touch of national liberty. But he lived not to see a martial tyranny aspiring to universal conquest-filling the world with bloodshed, and teaching the rights of man with bayonet and cannon. Had he seen this, he would have loved liberty more fondly, since he saw she was a native of his own glens and hills; and he would have poured out patriotic songs to inspire us both by land and wave. BANKS OF THE DEVON. How pleasant the banks of the clear-winding Devon, With green-spreading bushes, and flowers blooming fair! But the bonniest flower on the banks of the Devon That steals on the evening each leaf to renew! O, spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes, And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seizes And England triumphant display her proud rose; Of the origin of "The Banks of the Devon," Burns says, "These verses were composed on a charming girl, Miss Charlotte Hamilton, who is now married to James Adair, physician. She is sister to my worthy friend Gawin Hamilton of Mauchline, and was born on the banks of the Ayr, but was residing when I wrote these lines at Harveyston in Clackmannanshire, on the romantic banks of the little river Devon." To this lady Burns addressed a dozen of his finest letters, which, in an hour of carelessness or vexation, were committed to the fire. THE CHEVALIER'S LAMENT. The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning, The murmuring streamlet winds clear thro' the vale; The hawthorn trees blow in the dews of the morning, And wild scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale : But what can give pleasure, or what can seem fair, No flowers gaily springing, nor birds sweetly singing, Can soothe the sad bosom of joyless despair. The deed that I dar'd could it merit their malice, His right are these hills, and his right are these valleys, none. But 'tis not my sufferings thus wretched, forlorn; When Prince Charles Stuart saw that utter ruin had fallen on all those who loved him and fought for him— that the axe and the cord were busy with their persons, and that their wives and children were driven desolate, he is supposed by Burns to have given utterance to his feelings in this touching lament. O ARE YE SLEEPING, MAGGIE? Mirk and rainy is the night, No a starn in a' the carry ; Let me in, for loud the linn Is roaring at the warlock craigie. Fearfu' soughs the boortree bank, The rifted wood roars wild and drearie; Loud the iron yate does clank, And cry o' howlets makes me eerie. Aboon my breath I daurna speak, For fear I rouse your waukrife daddie ; cheek; Cauld's the blast upon my O rise, rise, my bonnie lady! She opt the door, she let him in, For boortree bank, or warlock craigie! |