Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
     How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
     How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,
     Had not on earth whereon to lay His head: 
     How His first followers and servants sped;
     The precepts sage they wrote to many a land: 
     How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
     Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
     And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounc’d by Heaven’s command.

     Then, kneeling down to Heaven’s Eternal King,
     The saint, the father, and the husband prays: 
     Hope “springs exulting on triumphant wing,"^1
     That thus they all shall meet in future days,
     There, ever bask in uncreated rays,
     No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
     Together hymning their Creator’s praise,
     In such society, yet still more dear;
     While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere

     Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride,
     In all the pomp of method, and of art;
     When men display to congregations wide

     [Footnote 1:  Pope’s “Windsor Forest.”—­R.B.]

     Devotion’s ev’ry grace, except the heart! 
     The Power, incens’d, the pageant will desert,
     The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
     But haply, in some cottage far apart,
     May hear, well-pleas’d, the language of the soul;
     And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.

     Then homeward all take off their sev’ral way;
     The youngling cottagers retire to rest: 
     The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
     And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
     That he who stills the raven’s clam’rous nest,
     And decks the lily fair in flow’ry pride,
     Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
     For them and for their little ones provide;
     But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

     From scenes like these, old Scotia’s grandeur springs,
     That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad: 
     Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
     “An honest man’s the noblest work of God;”
     And certes, in fair virtue’s heavenly road,
     The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
     What is a lordling’s pomp? a cumbrous load,
     Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
     Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin’d!

     O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! 
     For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,
     Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
     Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! 
     And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
     From luxury’s contagion, weak and vile! 
     Then howe’er crowns and coronets be rent,
     A virtuous populace may rise the while,
     And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov’d isle.