Presented to the Author by a Lady.

     Thou flatt’ring mark of friendship kind,
     Still may thy pages call to mind
     The dear, the beauteous donor;
     Tho’ sweetly female ev’ry part,
     Yet such a head, and more the heart
     Does both the sexes honour: 
     She show’d her taste refin’d and just,
     When she selected thee;
     Yet deviating, own I must,
     For sae approving me: 
     But kind still I’ll mind still
     The giver in the gift;
     I’ll bless her, an’ wiss her
     A Friend aboon the lift.

Song, Composed In Spring

     Tune—­“Jockey’s Grey Breeks.”

     Again rejoicing Nature sees
     Her robe assume its vernal hues: 
     Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,
     All freshly steep’d in morning dews.

     Chorus.—­And maun I still on Menie doat,
     And bear the scorn that’s in her e’e? 
     For it’s jet, jet black, an’ it’s like a hawk,
     An’ it winna let a body be.

     In vain to me the cowslips blaw,
     In vain to me the vi’lets spring;
     In vain to me in glen or shaw,
     The mavis and the lintwhite sing. 
     And maun I still, &c.

     The merry ploughboy cheers his team,
     Wi’ joy the tentie seedsman stalks;
     But life to me’s a weary dream,
     A dream of ane that never wauks. 
     And maun I still, &c.

     The wanton coot the water skims,
     Amang the reeds the ducklings cry,
     The stately swan majestic swims,
     And ev’ry thing is blest but I.
     And maun I still, &c.

     The sheep-herd steeks his faulding slap,
     And o’er the moorlands whistles shill: 
     Wi’ wild, unequal, wand’ring step,
     I meet him on the dewy hill. 
     And maun I still, &c.

     And when the lark, ’tween light and dark,
     Blythe waukens by the daisy’s side,
     And mounts and sings on flittering wings,
     A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide. 
     And maun I still, &c.

     Come winter, with thine angry howl,
     And raging, bend the naked tree;
     Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul,
     When nature all is sad like me! 
     And maun I still, &c.

To A Mountain Daisy,

     On turning down with the Plough, in April, 1786.

     Wee, modest crimson-tipped flow’r,
     Thou’s met me in an evil hour;
     For I maun crush amang the stoure
     Thy slender stem: 
     To spare thee now is past my pow’r,
     Thou bonie gem.

     Alas! it’s no thy neibor sweet,
     The bonie lark, companion meet,
     Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet,
     Wi’ spreckl’d breast! 
     When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
     The purpling east.