No More Learning

But loyalty truce! we're on dangerous ground,
Who knows how the fashions may alter?
The doctrine, to-day, that is loyalty sound,
To-morrow may bring us a halter.

I send you a trifle, the head of a bard,
A trifle scarce worthy your care;
But accept it, good Sir, as a mark of regard,
Sincere as a saint's dying prayer.

Now life's chilly evening dim shades on your eye,
And ushers the long dreary night;
But you, like the star that athwart gilds the sky,
Your course to the latest is bright.

* * * * *




LXXXIX.

WRITTEN IN

FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE,

ON THE BANKS OF NITH.

JUNE. 1788.

[FIRST COPY. ]

[The interleaved volume presented by Burns to Dr. Geddes, has enabled
me to present the reader with the rough draught of this truly
beautiful Poem, the first-fruits perhaps of his intercourse with the
muses of Nithside. ]


Thou whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
Grave these maxims on thy soul.
Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
Day, how rapid in its flight--
Day, how few must see the night;
Hope not sunshine every hour,
Fear not clouds will always lower.
Happiness is but a name,
Make content and ease thy aim.
Ambition is a meteor gleam;
Fame, a restless idle dream:
Pleasures, insects on the wing
Round Peace, the tenderest flower of Spring;
Those that sip the dew alone,
Make the butterflies thy own;
Those that would the bloom devour,
Crush the locusts--save the flower.
For the future be prepar'd,
Guard wherever thou canst guard;
But, thy utmost duly done,
Welcome what thou canst not shun.
Follies past, give thou to air,
Make their consequence thy care:
Keep the name of man in mind,
And dishonour not thy kind.
Reverence with lowly heart
Him whose wondrous work thou art;
Keep His goodness still in view,
Thy trust--and thy example, too.

Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide!
Quod the Beadsman on Nithside.

* * * * *




XC.

WRITTEN IN

FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE,

ON NITHSIDE.

DECEMBER, 1788.

[Of this Poem Burns thought so well that he gave away many copies in
his own handwriting: I have seen three. When corrected to his mind,
and the manuscripts showed many changes and corrections, he published
it in the new edition of his Poems as it stands in this second copy.
The little Hermitage where these lines were written, stood in a lonely
plantation belonging to the estate of Friars-Carse, and close to the
march-dyke of Ellisland; a small door in the fence, of which the poet
had the key, admitted him at pleasure, and there he found seclusion
such as he liked, with flowers and shrubs all around him. The first
twelve lines of the Poem were engraved neatly on one of the
window-panes, by the diamond pencil of the Bard. On Riddel's death,
the Hermitage was allowed to go quietly to decay: I remember in 1803
turning two outlyer stots out of the interior. ]


Thou whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
Grave these counsels on thy soul.