My father pat me frae his door,
     My friends they hae disown’d me a’;
     But I hae ane will tak my part,
     The bonie lad that’s far awa.

     A pair o’ glooves he bought to me,
     And silken snoods he gae me twa;
     And I will wear them for his sake,
     The bonie lad that’s far awa.

     O weary Winter soon will pass,
     And Spring will cleed the birken shaw;
     And my young babie will be born,
     And he’ll be hame that’s far awa.

Verses To Clarinda

     Sent with a Pair of Wine-Glasses.

     Fair Empress of the Poet’s soul,
     And Queen of Poetesses;
     Clarinda, take this little boon,
     This humble pair of glasses: 

     And fill them up with generous juice,
     As generous as your mind;
     And pledge them to the generous toast,
     “The whole of human kind!”

     “To those who love us!” second fill;
     But not to those whom we love;
     Lest we love those who love not us—­
     A third—­“To thee and me, Love!”

The Chevalier’s Lament

     Air—­“Captain O’Kean.”

     The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning,
     The murmuring streamlet winds clear thro’ the vale;
     The primroses blow in the dews of the morning,
     And wild scatter’d cowslips bedeck the green dale: 
     But what can give pleasure, or what can seem fair,
     When the lingering moments are numbered by care? 
     No birds sweetly singing, nor flow’rs gaily springing,
     Can soothe the sad bosom of joyless despair.

     The deed that I dared, could it merit their malice? 
     A king and a father to place on his throne! 
     His right are these hills, and his right are these valleys,
     Where the wild beasts find shelter, tho’ I can find none! 
     But ’tis not my suff’rings, thus wretched, forlorn,
     My brave gallant friends, ’tis your ruin I mourn;
     Your faith proved so loyal in hot bloody trial,—­
     Alas!  I can make it no better return!

Epistle To Hugh Parker

     In this strange land, this uncouth clime,
     A land unknown to prose or rhyme;
     Where words ne’er cross’t the Muse’s heckles,
     Nor limpit in poetic shackles: 
     A land that Prose did never view it,
     Except when drunk he stacher’t thro’ it;
     Here, ambush’d by the chimla cheek,
     Hid in an atmosphere of reek,
     I hear a wheel thrum i’ the neuk,
     I hear it—­for in vain I leuk. 
     The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel,
     Enhusked by a fog infernal: 
     Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,
     I sit and count my sins by chapters;
     For life and spunk like ither Christians,