The Complete Works of Robert Burns Part 51

O thou grim mischief-making chiel, That gars the notes of discord squeel, 'Till daft mankind aft dance a reel In gore a shoe-thick!-- Gie' a' the faes o' Scotland's weal A towmond's Toothache.

XCIX.

ODE

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF

MRS. OSWALD,

OF AUCHENCRUIVE.

[The origin of this harsh effusion shows under what feelings Burns sometimes wrote. He was, he says, on his way to Ayrshire, one stormy day in January, and had made himself comfortable, in spite of the snow-drift, over a smoking bowl, at an inn at the Sanquhar, when in wheeled the whole funeral pageantry of Mrs. Oswald. He was obliged to mount his horse and ride for quarters to New c.u.mnock, where, over a good fire, he penned, in his very ungallant indignation, the Ode to the lady's memory. He lived to think better of the name.]

Dweller in yon dungeon dark, Hangman of creation, mark!

Who in widow-weeds appears, Laden with unhonoured years, Noosing with care a bursting purse, Baited with many a deadly curse?

STROPHE.

View the wither'd beldam's face-- Can thy keen inspection trace Aught of Humanity's sweet melting grace?

Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows, Pity's flood there never rose.

See these hands, ne'er stretch'd to save, Hands that took--but never gave.

Keeper of Mammon's iron chest, Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!

ANTISTROPHE.

Plunderer of armies, lift thine eyes, (Awhile forbear, ye tort'ring fiends;) Seest thou whose step, unwilling hither bends?

No fallen angel, hurl'd from upper skies; 'Tis thy trusty quondam mate, Doom'd to share thy fiery fate, She, tardy, h.e.l.l-ward plies.

EPODE.

And are they of no more avail, Ten thousand glitt'ring pounds a-year?

In other worlds can Mammon fail, Omnipotent as he is here?

O, bitter mock'ry of the pompous bier, While down the wretched vital part is driv'n!

The cave-lodg'd beggar, with a conscience clear, Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heav'n.

C.

FRAGMENT INSCRIBED

TO THE RIGHT HON. C.J. FOX.

[It was late in life before Burns began to think very highly of Fox: he had hitherto spoken of him rather as a rattler of dice, and a frequenter of soft company, than as a statesman. As his hopes from the Tories vanished, he began to think of the Whigs: the first did nothing, and the latter held out hopes; and as hope, he said was the cordial of the human heart, he continued to hope on.]

How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite; How virtue and vice blend their black and their white; How genius, th' ill.u.s.trious father of fiction, Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction-- I sing: if these mortals, the critics, should bustle, I care not, not I--let the critics go whistle!

But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory At once may ill.u.s.trate and honour my story.

Thou first of our orators, first of our wits; Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits; With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong, No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong; With pa.s.sions so potent, and fancies so bright, No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right;-- A sorry, poor misbegot son of the muses, For using thy name offers fifty excuses.

Good L--d, what is man? for as simple he looks, Do but try to develope his hooks and his crooks; With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil, All in all he's a problem must puzzle the devil.

On his one ruling pa.s.sion Sir Pope hugely labours, That, like th' old Hebrew walking-switch, eats up its neighbours; Mankind are his show-box--a friend, would you know him?

Pull the string, ruling pa.s.sion the picture will show him.

What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system, One trifling particular, truth, should have miss'd him; For spite of his fine theoretic positions, Mankind is a science defies definitions.

Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe, And think human nature they truly describe; Have you found this, or t'other? there's more in the wind, As by one drunken fellow his comrades you'll find.

But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan, In the make of that wonderful creature, call'd man, No two virtues, whatever relation they claim, Nor even two different shades of the same, Though like as was ever twin brother to brother, Possessing the one shall imply you've the other.

But truce with abstraction, and truce with a muse, Whose rhymes you'll perhaps, Sir, ne'er deign to peruse: Will you leave your justings, your jars, and your quarrels, Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels.

My much-honour'd Patron, believe your poor poet, Your courage much more than your prudence you show it; In vain with Squire Billy, for laurels you struggle, He'll have them by fair trade, if not, he will smuggle; Not cabinets even of kings would conceal 'em, He'd up the back-stairs, and by G--he would steal 'em.

Then feats like Squire Billy's you ne'er can achieve 'em; It is not, outdo him, the task is, out-thieve him.

CI.

ON SEEING

A WOUNDED HARE

LIMP BY ME,

WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT.

[This Poem is founded on fact. A young man of the name of Thomson told me--quite unconscious of the existence of the Poem--that while Burns lived at Ellisland--he shot at and hurt a hare, which in the twilight was feeding on his father's wheat-bread. The poet, on observing the hare come bleeding past him, "was in great wrath," said Thomson, "and cursed me, and said little hindered him from throwing me into the Nith; and he was able enough to do it, though I was both young and strong." The boor of Nithside did not use the hare worse than the critical Dr. Gregory, of Edinburgh, used the Poem: when Burns read his remarks he said, "Gregory is a good man, but he crucifies me!"]

Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art, And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye; May never pity soothe thee with a sigh, Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart.

Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field!

The bitter little that of life remains: No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.