Lone on the bleaky hills the straying flocks
     Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks;
     Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains,
     The gathering floods burst o’er the distant plains;
     Beneath the blast the leafless forests groan;
     The hollow caves return a hollow moan. 
     Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves,
     Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves! 
     Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye,
     Sad to your sympathetic glooms I fly;
     Where, to the whistling blast and water’s roar,
     Pale Scotia’s recent wound I may deplore.

     O heavy loss, thy country ill could bear! 
     A loss these evil days can ne’er repair! 
     Justice, the high vicegerent of her God,
     Her doubtful balance eyed, and sway’d her rod: 
     Hearing the tidings of the fatal blow,
     She sank, abandon’d to the wildest woe.

     Wrongs, injuries, from many a darksome den,
     Now, gay in hope, explore the paths of men: 
     See from his cavern grim Oppression rise,
     And throw on Poverty his cruel eyes;
     Keen on the helpless victim see him fly,
     And stifle, dark, the feebly-bursting cry: 
     Mark Ruffian Violence, distained with crimes,
     Rousing elate in these degenerate times,
     View unsuspecting Innocence a prey,
     As guileful Fraud points out the erring way: 
     While subtle Litigation’s pliant tongue
     The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong: 
     Hark, injur’d Want recounts th’ unlisten’d tale,
     And much-wrong’d Mis’ry pours the unpitied wail!

     Ye dark waste hills, ye brown unsightly plains,
     Congenial scenes, ye soothe my mournful strains: 
     Ye tempests, rage! ye turbid torrents, roll! 
     Ye suit the joyless tenor of my soul. 
     Life’s social haunts and pleasures I resign;
     Be nameless wilds and lonely wanderings mine,
     To mourn the woes my country must endure—­
     That would degenerate ages cannot cure.

Sylvander To Clarinda^1

Extempore Reply to Verses addressed to the Author by a Lady, under the signature of “Clarinda” and entitled, On Burns saying he ’had nothing else to do.’

     When dear Clarinda, matchless fair,
     First struck Sylvander’s raptur’d view,
     He gaz’d, he listened to despair,
     Alas! ’twas all he dared to do.

     Love, from Clarinda’s heavenly eyes,
     Transfixed his bosom thro’ and thro’;
     But still in Friendships’ guarded guise,
     For more the demon fear’d to do.

     That heart, already more than lost,
     The imp beleaguer’d all perdue;
     For frowning Honour kept his post—­
     To meet that frown, he shrunk to do.

     His pangs the Bard refused to own,
     Tho’ half he wish’d Clarinda knew;
     But Anguish wrung the unweeting groan—­
     Who blames what frantic Pain must do?