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Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting

youth?

Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling

smooth!

Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exil'd? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child,

Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild?

11

But now the supper crowns their simple board,

The halesome parritch,21 chief of Scotia's food;

The sowpe22 their only hawkie23 does afford,

That yont 24 the hallan 25 snugly chows her cud.

The dame brings forth, in complimental mood,

To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd 26 kebbuck fell,27

An' aft 28 he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid;

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell, How 'twas a towmond 29 auld, sin' lint 30 was i' the bell.

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The priest-like father reads the sacred page,

How Abram 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.

15

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 Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heav'n's command.

16

Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal

King,

The saint, the father, and the husband prays:

25 incites, kindles

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"See stern oppression's iron grip, Or mad ambition's gory hand, Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip, Woe, want, and murder o'er a land! Ev'n in the peaceful rural vale, Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, How pamper'd luxury, flatt'ry 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 glitt'ring show, A creature of another kind,

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When wearing thro' the afternoon,
Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame,
Forgather'd ance upon a time.

The first I'll name, they ca'd him Caesar,
Was keepit for his Honor's pleasure;
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,1
Shew'd he was nane o' Scotland's dogs;
But whalpit 2 some place far abroad,
Whare sailors gang to fish for cod.

His locked, letter'd, braw3 brass collar
Shew'd him the gentleman and scholar;
But tho' he was o' high degree,
The fienta pride-nae pride had he,
But wad hae spent an hour caressin',
Even wi' a tinkler-gypsey's messan.
At kirk or market, mill or smiddie,
Nae tawted tyke,8 tho' e'er sae duddie,9
But he wad stan't, as glad to see him,
And stroan't on stanes an' hillocks wi' him.

The tither was a plowman's collie,

6

A rhyming, ranting, raving billie,
Wha for his friend an' comrade had him,
And in his freaks had Luath ca'd him,
After some dog in Highland sang,
Was made lang-syne-Lord knows how lang.

He was a gash 10 an' faithfu' tyke,
As ever lap a sheugh 11 or dyke.
His honest, sonsie, baws'nt 12 face,
Aye gat him friends in ilka place.
His breast was white, his towzie back
Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black;
His gaucie 13 tail, wi' upward curl,
Hung owre his hurdies 14 wi' a swirl.

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& cur

10 wise

• smithy

11 ditch

7 prize

12 white-streaked 13 big and joyous 14 haunches

15 moles

16 digged

17 larking

is knoll

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