Roger. Kind Patie, now fair fa' your honest heart! Ye're ay sae cadgy, and have sic an art To hearten ane; for now, as clean's a leek, Ye've cherished me since ye began to speak. Sae, for your pains, I'll mak ye a propine 195 (My mother, rest her saul! she made it fine) — A tartan plaid, spun of good hawslock woo, Scarlet and green the sets, the borders blue, With spraings like gowd and siller crossed with black; 200 Weel are ye wordy o't, wha have sae kind Red up my reveled doubts and cleared my mind. Patie. Weel, ha'd ye there. And since ye've frankly made To me a present of your braw new plaid, 205 Roger. As ye advise, I'll promise to observe 't. But ye maun keep the flute; ye best deserve 't: For I'm in tift to hear you play and sing. 210 Patie. But first we'll take a turn up to the height, And see gif all our flocks be feeding right. Be that time bannocks and a shave of cheese 215 MATTHEW GREEN FROM THE SPLEEN Forced by soft violence of pray'r, And thus she models my desire. Two hundred pounds half-yearly paid, A farm some twenty miles from town, 1721. A boy to help to tread the mow, And drive while t' other holds the plough; A chief, of temper formed to please, Fit to converse and keep the keys, And may my humble dwelling stand A pond before, full to the brim, Where cows may cool and geese may swim; 5 ΙΟ 15 20 25 Soft to the eye and to the feet, 30 Fit dwelling for the feathered throng, Who pay their quit-rents with a song; With op'ning views of hill and dale, 35 Which sense and fancy too regale, Where the half-cirque, which vision bounds, And woods impervious to the breeze Thick phalanx of embodied trees, 40 From hills through plains in dusk array Here stillness, height, and solemn shade Here nymphs from hollow oaks relate There see the clover, pea, and bean Vie in variety of green; Fresh pastures speckled o'er with sheep; Brown fields their fallow Sabbaths keep; Plump Ceres golden tresses wear, And poppy top-knots deck her hair; 60 And silver streams through meadows stray, And naiads on the margin play; And lesser nymphs on side of hills From plaything urns pour down the rills. Thus sheltered, free from care and strife, May I enjoy a calm through life; See faction, safe in low degree, As men at land see storms at sea; 65 And laugh at miserable elves, Not kind so much as to themselves, Cursed with such souls of base alloy 70 By av'rice, sphincter of the heart, Who wealth, hard earned by guilty cares, 75 May I, with look ungloomed by guile, 80 With income not in Fortune's pow'r, To purchase books, and hear the news, 85 And quicken taste at coming down, When Fate extends its gathering gripe, Quit a worn being without pain, JOHN DYER GRONGAR HILL Silent nymph with curious eye, Come, and aid thy sister Muse, 1737. 90 5 ΙΟ |