MY lord, I know your noble ear
Woe neer assails in vain;
Emboldend thus, I beg youll hear
Your humble slave complain,
How saucy Phoebus scorching beams,
In flaming summer-pride,
Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams,
And drink my crystal tide. 1
The lightly-jumping, glowrin trouts,
That thro my waters play,
If, in their random, wanton spouts,
They near the margin stray;
If, hapless chance! they linger lang,
Im scorching up so shallow,
Theyre left the whitening stanes amang,
In gasping death to wallow.
Last day I grat wi spite and teen,
As poet Burns came by.
That, to a bard, I should be seen
Wi half my channel dry;
A panegyric rhyme, I ween,
Evn as I was, he shord me;
But had I in my glory been,
He, kneeling, wad adord me.
Here, foaming down the skelvy rocks,
In twisting strength I rin;
There, high my boiling torrent smokes,
Wild-roaring oer a linn:
Enjoying each large spring and well,
As Nature gave them me,
I am, altho I sayt mysel,
Worth gaun a mile to see.
Would then my noble master please
To grant my highest wishes,
Hell shade my banks wi towring trees,
And bonie spreading bushes.
Delighted doubly then, my lord,
Youll wander on my banks,
And listen mony a grateful bird
Return you tuneful thanks.
The sober lavrock, warbling wild,
Shall to the skies aspire;
The gowdspink, Musics gayest child,
Shall sweetly join the choir;
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear,
The mavis mild and mellow;
The robin pensive Autumn cheer,
In all her locks of yellow.
This, too, a covert shall ensure,
To shield them from the storm;
And coward maukin sleep secure,
Low in her grassy form:
Here shall the shepherd make his seat,
To weave his crown of flowrs;
Or find a sheltring, safe retreat,
From prone-descending showrs.
And here, by sweet, endearing stealth,
Shall meet the loving pair,
Despising worlds, with all their wealth,
As empty idle care;
The flowrs shall vie in all their charms,
The hour of heavn to grace;
And birks extend their fragrant arms
To screen the dear embrace.
Here haply too, at vernal dawn,
Some musing bard may stray,
And eye the smoking, dewy lawn,
And misty mountain grey;
Or, by the reapers nightly beam,
Mild-chequering thro the trees,
Rave to my darkly dashing stream,
Hoarse-swelling on the breeze.
Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,
My lowly banks oerspread,
And view, deep-bending in the pool,
Their shadows watry bed:
Let fragrant birks, in woodbines drest,
My craggy cliffs adorn;
And, for the little songsters nest,
The close embowring thorn.
So may old Scotias darling hope,
Your little angel band
Spring, like their fathers, up to prop
Their honourd native land!
So may, thro Albions farthest ken,
To social-flowing glasses,
The grace beAtholes honest men,
And Atholes bonie lasses!
Note 1. Bruar Falls, in Athole, are exceedingly picturesque and beautiful; but their effect is much impaired by the want of trees and shrubs.R. B. [back]