No More Learning

_"

["These English songs," thus complains the poet, in the letter which
conveyed this lyric to Thomson, "gravel me to death: I have not that
command of the language that I have of my native tongue. I have been
at 'Duncan Gray,' to dress it in English, but all I can do is
deplorably stupid. For instance:"]


I.

Let not woman e'er complain
Of inconstancy in love;
Let not woman e'er complain
Fickle man is apt to rove:
Look abroad through nature's range,
Nature's mighty law is change;
Ladies, would it not be strange,
Man should then a monster prove?

II.

Mark the winds, and mark the skies;
Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow:
Sun find moon but set to rise,
Round and round the seasons go:
Why then ask of silly man
To oppose great nature's plan?
We'll be constant while we can--
You can be no more, you know.

* * * * *




CCXXX.

THE LOVER'S MORNING SALUTE TO HIS MISTRESS.

Tune--"_Deil tak the Wars. _"

[Burns has, in one of his letters, partly intimated that this morning
salutation to Chloris was occasioned by sitting till the dawn at the
punch-bowl, and walking past her window on his way home. ]


I.

Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thou, fairest creature?
Rosy Morn now lifts his eye,
Numbering ilka bud which nature
Waters wi' the tears o' joy:
Now through the leafy woods,
And by the reeking floods,
Wild nature's tenants freely, gladly stray;
The lintwhite in his bower
Chants o'er the breathing flower;
The lav'rock to the sky
Ascends wi' sangs o' joy,
While the sun and thou arise to bless the day.

II.
Phoebus gilding the brow o' morning,
Banishes ilk darksome shade,
Nature gladdening and adorning;
Such to me my lovely maid.
When absent frae my fair,
The murky shades o' care
With starless gloom o'ercast my sullen sky;
But when, in beauty's light,
She meets my ravish'd sight,
When thro' my very heart
Her beaming glories dart--
'Tis then I wake to life, to light, and joy.

* * * * *




CCXXXI.

CHLORIS.

Air--"_My lodging is on the cold ground. _"

[The origin of this song is thus told by Burns to Thomson. "On my
visit the other day to my fair Chloris, that is the poetic name of the
lovely goddess of my inspiration, she suggested an idea which I, on my
return from the visit, wrought into the following song. " The poetic
elevation of Chloris is great: she lived, when her charms faded, in
want, and died all but destitute. ]


I.

My Chloris, mark how green the groves,
The primrose banks how fair:
The balmy gales awake the flowers,
And wave thy flaxen hair.

II.

The lav'rock shuns the palace gay,
And o'er the cottage sings;
For nature smiles as sweet, I ween,
To shepherds as to kings

III.

Let minstrels sweep the skilfu' string
In lordly lighted ha':
The shepherd stops his simple reed,
Blythe, in the birken shaw.

IV.

The princely revel may survey
Our rustic dance wi' scorn;
But are their hearts as light as ours,
Beneath the milk-white thorn?

V.