The Complete Works of Robert Burns Part 66

Cx.x.xII.

MONODY,

ON A LADY FAMED FOR HER CAPRICE.

[The heroine Of this rough lampoon was Mrs. Riddel of Woodleigh Park: a lady young and gay, much of a wit, and something of a poetess, and till the hour of his death the friend of Burns himself. She pulled his displeasure on her, it is said, by smiling more sweetly than he liked on some "epauletted c.o.xcombs," for so he sometimes designated commissioned officers: the lady soon laughed him out of his mood. We owe to her pen an account of her last interview with the poet, written with great beauty and feeling.]

How cold is that bosom which folly once fired, How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten'd!

How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired, How dull is that ear which to flattery so listen'd!

If sorrow and anguish their exit await, From friendship and dearest affection remov'd; How doubly severer, Maria, thy fate, Thou diest unwept as thou livedst unlov'd.

Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you; So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear: But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true, And flowers let us cull for Maria's cold bier.

We'll search through the garden for each silly flower, We'll roam through the forest for each idle weed; But chiefly the nettle, so typical, shower, For none e'er approach'd her but rued the rash deed.

We'll sculpture the marble, we'll measure the lay; Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre; There keen indignation shall dart on her prey, Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire.

THE EPITAPH.

Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect, What once was a b.u.t.terfly, gay in life's beam: Want only of wisdom denied her respect, Want only of goodness denied her esteem

Cx.x.xIII.

EPISTLE

FROM

ESOPUS TO MARIA.

[Williamson, the actor, Colonel Macdouall, Captain Gillespie, and Mrs.

Riddel, are the characters which pa.s.s over the stage in this strange composition: it is printed from the Poet's own ma.n.u.script, and seems a sort of outpouring of wrath and contempt, on persons who, in his eyes, gave themselves airs beyond their condition, or their merits. The verse of the lady is held up to contempt and laughter: the satirist celebrates her

"Motley foundling fancies, stolen or strayed;"

and has a pa.s.sing hit at her

"Still matchless tongue that conquers all reply."]

From those drear solitudes and frowsy cells, Where infamy with sad repentance dwells; Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast, And deal from iron hands the spare repast; Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin, Blush at the curious stranger peeping in; Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar, Resolve to drink, nay, half to wh.o.r.e, no more; Where tiny thieves not destin'd yet to swing, Beat hemp for others, riper for the string: From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date, To tell Maria her Esopus' fate.

"Alas! I feel I am no actor here!"

'Tis real hangmen, real scourges bear!

Prepare, Maria, for a horrid tale Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale; Will make they hair, tho' erst from gipsy polled, By barber woven, and by barber sold, Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care, Like h.o.a.ry bristles to erect and stare.

The hero of the mimic scene, no more I start in Hamlet, in Oth.e.l.lo roar; Or haughty Chieftain, 'mid the din of arms, In Highland bonnet woo Malvina's charms; While sans culottes stoop up the mountain high, And steal from me Maria's prying eye.

Blest Highland bonnet! Once my proudest dress, Now prouder still, Maria's temples press.

I see her wave thy towering plumes afar, And call each c.o.xcomb to the wordy war.

I see her face the first of Ireland's sons,[110]

And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze; The crafty colonel[111] leaves the tartan'd lines, For other wars, where he a hero shines; The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred, Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head; Comes, 'mid a string of c.o.xcombs to display That veni, vidi, vici, is his way; The shrinking bard adown the alley skulks, And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich hulks; Though there, his heresies in church and state Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate: Still she undaunted reels and rattles on, And dares the public like a noontide sun.

(What scandal call'd Maria's janty stagger The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger, Whose spleen e'en worse than Burns' venom when He dips in gall unmix'd his eager pen,-- And pours his vengeance in the burning line, Who christen'd thus Maria's lyre divine; The idiot strum of vanity bemused, And even th' abuse of poesy abused!

Who call'd her verse, a parish workhouse made For motley foundling fancies, stolen or stray'd?)

A workhouse! ah, that sound awakes my woes, And pillows on the thorn my rack'd repose!

In durance vile here must I wake and weep, And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep; That straw where many a rogue has lain of yore, And vermin'd gipsies litter'd heretofore.

Why, Lonsdale, thus thy wrath on vagrants pour?

Must earth no rascal save thyself endure?

Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell, And make a vast monopoly of h.e.l.l?

Thou know'st, the virtues cannot hate thee worse, The vices also, must they club their curse?

Or must no tiny sin to others fall, Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all?

Maria, send me too thy griefs and cares; In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares.

As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls, Who on my fair one satire's vengeance hurls?

Who calls thee, pert, affected, vain coquette, A wit in folly, and a fool in wit?

Who says, that fool alone is not thy due, And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true?

Our force united on thy foes we'll turn, And dare the war with all of woman born: For who can write and speak as thou and I?

My periods that deciphering defy, And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 110: Captain Gillespie.]

[Footnote 111: Col. Macdouall.]

Cx.x.xIV.

POEM

ON PASTORAL POETRY.

[Though Gilbert Burns says there is some doubt of this Poem being by his brother, and though Robert Chambers declares that he "has scarcely a doubt that it is not by the Ayrshire Bard," I must print it as his, for I have no doubt on the subject. It was found among the papers of the poet, in his own handwriting: the second, the fourth, and the concluding verses bear the Burns' stamp, which no one has been successful in counterfeiting: they resemble the verses of Beattie, to which Chambers has compared them, as little as the cry of the eagle resembles the chirp of the wren.]