No More Learning

R. Burns
March, 1787




Verses Intended To Be Written Below A Noble Earl's Picture^1

Whose is that noble, dauntless brow?
And whose that eye of fire?
And whose that generous princely mien,
E'en rooted foes admire?

Stranger! to justly show that brow,
And mark that eye of fire,
Would take His hand, whose vernal tints
His other works admire.

Bright as a cloudless summer sun,
With stately port he moves;
His guardian Seraph eyes with awe
The noble Ward he loves.

Among the illustrious Scottish sons
That chief thou may'st discern,
Mark Scotia's fond-returning eye,--
It dwells upon Glencairn.




Prologue

Spoken by Mr. Woods on his benefit-night, Monday, 16th April, 1787.

When, by a generous Public's kind acclaim,
That dearest meed is granted--honest fame;
Waen here your favour is the actor's lot,
Nor even the man in private life forgot;
What breast so dead to heavenly Virtue's glow,
But heaves impassion'd with the grateful throe?

Poor is the task to please a barb'rous throng,
It needs no Siddons' powers in Southern's song;
But here an ancient nation, fam'd afar,
For genius, learning high, as great in war.
Hail, Caledonia, name for ever dear!
Before whose sons I'm honour'd to appear?

[Footnote 1: The Nobleman is James, Fourteenth Earl of Glencairn.
]

Where every science, every nobler art,
That can inform the mind or mend the heart,
Is known; as grateful nations oft have found,
Far as the rude barbarian marks the bound.
Philosophy, no idle pedant dream,
Here holds her search by heaven-taught Reason's beam;
Here History paints with elegance and force
The tide of Empire's fluctuating course;
Here Douglas forms wild Shakespeare into plan,
And Harley rouses all the God in man.
When well-form'd taste and sparkling wit unite
With manly lore, or female beauty bright,
(Beauty, where faultless symmetry and grace
Can only charm us in the second place),
Witness my heart, how oft with panting fear,
As on this night, I've met these judges here!
But still the hope Experience taught to live,
Equal to judge--you're candid to forgive.
No hundred--headed riot here we meet,
With decency and law beneath his feet;
Nor Insolence assumes fair Freedom's name:
Like Caledonians, you applaud or blame.

O Thou, dread Power! whose empire-giving hand
Has oft been stretch'd to shield the honour'd land!
Strong may she glow with all her ancient fire;
May every son be worthy of his sire;
Firm may she rise, with generous disdain
At Tyranny's, or direr Pleasure's chain;
Still Self-dependent in her native shore,
Bold may she brave grim Danger's loudest roar,
Till Fate the curtain drop on worlds to be no more.




The Bonie Moor-Hen

The heather was blooming, the meadows were mawn,
Our lads gaed a-hunting ae day at the dawn,
O'er moors and o'er mosses and mony a glen,
At length they discover'd a bonie moor-hen.

Chorus. --I rede you, beware at the hunting, young men,
I rede you, beware at the hunting, young men;
Take some on the wing, and some as they spring,
But cannily steal on a bonie moor-hen.

Sweet--brushing the dew from the brown heather bells
Her colours betray'd her on yon mossy fells;
Her plumage outlustr'd the pride o' the spring
And O! as she wanton'd sae gay on the wing.
I rede you, &c.

Auld Phoebus himself, as he peep'd o'er the hill,
In spite at her plumage he tried his skill;
He levell'd his rays where she bask'd on the brae--
His rays were outshone, and but mark'd where she lay.
I rede you,&c.