“The merle she sang, Hail, Rose of most delight,
    Hail, of all floris queen an’ sovereign! 
  The lark she sang, Hail, Rose both red and white;
    Most pleasant flower, of michty colours twane: 
    The nichtingale sang, Hail, Nature’s suffragane,
  In beauty, nurture, and every nobleness,
  In rich array, renown, and gentleness.

  “The common voice up raise of birdes small,
    Upon this wise, Oh, blessit be the hour
  That thou was chosen to be our principal! 
    Welcome to be our Princess of honour,
    Our pearl, our pleasance, and our paramour,
  Our peace, our play, our plain felicity;
  Christ thee comfort from all adversity.”

But beautiful as these poems are, it is as a satirist that Dunbar has performed his greatest feats.  He was by nature “dowered with the scorn of scorn,” and its edge was whetted by life-long disappointment.  Like Spenser, he knew—­

  “What Hell it is in suing long to bide.”

And even in poems where the mood is melancholy, where the burden is the shortness of life and the unpermanence of felicity, his satiric rage breaks out in single lines of fire.  And although his satire is often almost inconceivably coarse, the prompting instinct is healthy at bottom.  He hates Vice, although his hand is too often in the kennel to pelt her withal.  He lays his grasp on the bridle-rein of the sleek prelate, and upbraids him with his secret sins in language unsuited to modern ears.  His greater satires have a wild sheen of imagination about them.  They are far from being cold, moral homilies.  His wrath or his contempt breaks through the bounds of time and space, and brings the spiritual world on the stage.  He wishes to rebuke the citizens of Edinburgh for their habits of profane swearing, and the result is a poem, which probably gave Coleridge the hint of his “Devil’s Walk.”  Dunbar’s satire is entitled the “Devil’s Inquest.”  He represents the Fiend passing up through the market, and chuckling as he listens to the strange oaths of cobbler, maltman, tailor, courtier, and minstrel.  He comments on what he hears and sees with great pleasantry and satisfaction.  Here is the conclusion of the piece:—­

  “Ane thief said, God that ever I chaip,
  Nor ane stark widdy gar me gaip,
    But I in hell for geir wald be. 
  The Devil said, ’Welcome in a raip: 
    Renounce thy God, and cum to me.’

  “The fishwives net and swore with granes,
  And to the Fiend saul flesh and banes;
    They gave them, with ane shout on hie. 
  The Devil said, ’Welcome all at anes;
    Renounce your God, and cum to me.’

  “The rest of craftis great aiths swair,
  Their wark and craft had nae compair,
    Ilk ane unto their qualitie. 
  The Devil said then, withouten mair,
    ‘Renounce your God, and cum to me.’”