The thresher’s weary flingin-tree,
     The lee-lang day had tired me;
     And when the day had clos’d his e’e,
     Far i’ the west,
     Ben i’ the spence, right pensivelie,
     I gaed to rest.

     There, lanely by the ingle-cheek,
     I sat and ey’d the spewing reek,
     That fill’d, wi’ hoast-provoking smeek,
     The auld clay biggin;
     An’ heard the restless rattons squeak
     About the riggin.

     All in this mottie, misty clime,
     I backward mus’d on wasted time,
     How I had spent my youthfu’ prime,
     An’ done nae thing,
     But stringing blethers up in rhyme,
     For fools to sing.

     Had I to guid advice but harkit,
     I might, by this, hae led a market,
     Or strutted in a bank and clarkit
     My cash-account;
     While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit. 
     Is a’ th’ amount.

     [Footnote 1:  Duan, a term of Ossian’s for the different
     divisions of a digressive poem.  See his Cath-Loda, vol. 2 of
     M’Pherson’s translation.—­R.  B.]

     I started, mutt’ring, “blockhead! coof!”
     And heav’d on high my waukit loof,
     To swear by a’ yon starry roof,
     Or some rash aith,
     That I henceforth wad be rhyme-proof
     Till my last breath—­

     When click! the string the snick did draw;
     An’ jee! the door gaed to the wa’;
     An’ by my ingle-lowe I saw,
     Now bleezin bright,
     A tight, outlandish hizzie, braw,
     Come full in sight.

     Ye need na doubt, I held my whisht;
     The infant aith, half-form’d, was crusht
     I glowr’d as eerie’s I’d been dusht
     In some wild glen;
     When sweet, like honest Worth, she blusht,
     An’ stepped ben.

     Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs
     Were twisted, gracefu’, round her brows;
     I took her for some Scottish Muse,
     By that same token;
     And come to stop those reckless vows,
     Would soon been broken.

     A “hair-brain’d, sentimental trace”
     Was strongly marked in her face;
     A wildly-witty, rustic grace
     Shone full upon her;
     Her eye, ev’n turn’d on empty space,
     Beam’d keen with honour.

     Down flow’d her robe, a tartan sheen,
     Till half a leg was scrimply seen;
     An’ such a leg! my bonie Jean
     Could only peer it;
     Sae straught, sae taper, tight an’ clean—­
     Nane else came near it.

     Her mantle large, of greenish hue,
     My gazing wonder chiefly drew: 
     Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw
     A lustre grand;
     And seem’d, to my astonish’d view,
     A well-known land.

     Here, rivers in the sea were lost;
     There, mountains to the skies were toss’t: 
     Here, tumbling billows mark’d the coast,
     With surging foam;
     There, distant shone Art’s lofty boast,
     The lordly dome.