Selections from Five English Poets Part 7

My loved, my honored, much respected friend![1]

No mercenary bard his homage pays; With honest pride I scorn each selfish end, My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise: To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, 5 The lowly train in life's sequestered scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aikin in a cottage would have been; Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween![2]

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;[3] 10 The short'ning winter-day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae[4] the pleugh;[5]

The black'ning trains o' craws[6] to their repose: The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes, This night his weekly moil[7] is at an end, 15 Collects his spades, his mattocks,[8] and his hoes, Hoping the morn[9] in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does homeward[10] bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; 20 Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher[11] through To meet their dad, wi' flichterin'[12] noise and glee.

His wee bit ingle,[13] blinkin bonilie,[14]

His clean hearth-stane,[15] his thrifty wine's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 25 Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile,[16]

And makes him quite forget his labor and his toil,

Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in,[17]

At service out, amang the farmers roun'; Some ca'[18] the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin 30 A cannie errand to a neebor town:[19]

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,[20]

Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw[21] new gown, Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,[22] 35 To help her parents dear, if they in hards.h.i.+p be.

With joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet, And each for other's weelfare kindly spiers:[23]

The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet; Each tells the uncos[24] that he sees or hears. 40 The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; Antic.i.p.ation forward points the view; The mother wi' her needle and her sheers[25]

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel 's the new;[26]

The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 45

Their master's and their mistress's command The younkers[27] a' are warned to obey; And mind their labors wi' an eydent[28] hand, And ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk[29] or play: "And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway, 50 And mind your duty, duly, morn and night; Lest in temptation's path ye gang[30] astray, Implore His counsel and a.s.sisting might: They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!"

But hark! a rap comes gently to the door; 55 Jenny, wha kens[31] the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neebor[32] lad came o'er the moor To do some errands, and convoy her hame.

The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; 60 With heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name, While Jenny hafflins[33] is afraid to speak; Weel pleased the mother hears, it's nae[34]

wild, worthless rake.

With kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben;[35]

A strappin' youth, he takes the mother's eye; 65 Blithe Jenny sees the visit's no ill taen;[36]

The father cracks[37] of horses, pleughs, and kye.[38]

The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, But blate and laithfu',[39] scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles,[40] can spy 70 What makes the youth sae[41] bashfu' and sae grave; Weel-pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.[42]

O happy love! where love like this is found: O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!

I've paced much this weary, mortal round, 75 And sage experience bids me this declare,-- "If Heaven a draught of heav'nly pleasure spare, One cordial, in this melancholy vale, 'T is when a youthful, loving, modest pair In other's arms breathe out the tender tale 80 Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale."

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart, A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!

That can with studied, sly, ensnaring art Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? 85 Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling, smooth!

Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled?

Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,[43]

Points to the parents fondling' o'er their child?

Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild! 90

But now the supper crowns their simple board, The healsome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food;[44]

The soupe[45] their only hawkie[46] does afford, That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood;[47]

The dame brings forth in complimental mood, 95 To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck, fell;[48]

And aft he's pressed, and aft he ca's it guid;[49]

The frugal wine, garrulous, will tell, How 't was a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.[50]

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face 100 They round the ingle form a circle wide; The sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace The big ha'-Bible,[51] ance[52] his father's pride.

His bonnet[53] rev'rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets[54] wearing thin and bare; 105 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,[55]

He wales[56] a portion with judicious care; And, "Let us wors.h.i.+p G.o.d!" he says, with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the n.o.blest aim: 110 Perhaps _Dundee's_[57] wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive _Martyrs_,[57] worthy of the name; Or n.o.ble _Elgin_[57] beets[58] the heavenward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays.

Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; 115 The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise, Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.[59]

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of G.o.d on high;[60]

Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 120 With Amalek's ungracious progeny;[61]

Or, how the royal Bard[62] did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint,[63] and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; 125 Or other holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the Christian volume[64] is the theme: How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay His head; 130 How His first followers and servants sped;[65]

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:[66]

How he, who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, And heard great Bab'lon's doom p.r.o.nounced by Heaven's command.[67] 135

Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays: Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,"[68]

That thus they all shall meet in future days, There ever bask in uncreated rays, 140 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.

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, 145 In all the pomp of method, and of art; When men display to congregations wide Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart, The Power,[69] incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; 150 But haply,[70] in some cottage far apart, May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul, And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest: 155 The parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 160 For them and for their little ones provide; But, chiefly, in their hearts with Grace Divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her loved at home, revered abroad; Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,[71] 165 "An honest man's the n.o.blest work of G.o.d:"[72]

And certes,[73] in fair Virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp? a c.u.mbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, 170 Studied in arts of h.e.l.l, in wickedness refined!

O Scotia[1] my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!

Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! 175 And, O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!

Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle. 180

O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide That streamed thro' Wallace's undaunted heart,[74]

Who dared to n.o.bly stem tyrannic pride, Or n.o.bly die, the second glorious part, (The patriot's G.o.d peculiarly Thou art, 185 His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) O never, never, Scotia's realm desert, But still the patriot and the patriot-bard In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

[*]In printing this poem, it has seemed best to follow the text as given in the scholarly _Centenary Burns_ (1896), edited by Messrs.

Henley and Henderson.

NOTE.--_The Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night_ was written in 1785 or the beginning of 1786. In all English poetry there are few pictures of home life so charming as that portrayed in this poem. The stanza employed is the Spenserian stanza, named for Edmund Spenser, who first used it. The first eight lines have five feet each, while the last has six feet.

Cotter, as used by Burns, means _peasant farmer_.

[1.] Much respected friend, Robert Aiken, an early friend of the poet's, to whom the poem was inscribed.

[2.] Ween, think, fancy.

[3.] Sugh (p.r.o.nounced much like sook, with the _k_ softened; _i.e._ like _such_ in German), wail, sough.

[4.] Frae, from.

[5.] Pleugh (the _gh_ has a guttural sound), plough.