No More Learning

Hea'vn be thy guide!
Quod the beadsman of Nithside.

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XCI.

TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL,

OF GLENRIDDEL.

EXTEMPORE LINES ON RETURNING A NEWSPAPER.

[Captain Riddel, the Laird of Friars-Carse, was Burns's neighbour, at
Ellisland: he was a kind, hospitable man, and a good antiquary. The
"News and Review" which he sent to the poet contained, I have heard,
some sharp strictures on his works: Burns, with his usual strong
sense, set the proper value upon all contemporary criticism; genius,
he knew, had nothing to fear from the folly or the malice of all such
nameless "chippers and hewers. " He demanded trial by his peers, and
where were such to be found? ]


_Ellisland, Monday Evening. _

Your news and review, Sir, I've read through and through, Sir,
With little admiring or blaming;
The papers are barren of home-news or foreign,
No murders or rapes worth the naming.

Our friends, the reviewers, those chippers and hewers,
Are judges of mortar and stone, Sir,
But of _meet_ or _unmeet_ in a _fabric complete_,
I'll boldly pronounce they are none, Sir.

My goose-quill too rude is to tell all your goodness
Bestow'd on your servant, the Poet;
Would to God I had one like a beam of the sun,
And then all the world, Sir, should know it!

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XCII.

A MOTHER'S LAMENT

FOR THE DEATH OF HER SON.

["The Mother's Lament," says the poet, in a copy of the verses now
before me, "was composed partly with a view to Mrs.
Fergusson of
Craigdarroch, and partly to the worthy patroness of my early unknown
muse, Mrs. Stewart, of Afton. "]


Fate gave the word, the arrow sped,
And pierc'd my darling's heart;
And with him all the joys are fled
Life can to me impart.
By cruel hands the sapling drops,
In dust dishonour'd laid:
So fell the pride of all my hopes,
My age's future shade.

The mother-linnet in the brake
Bewails her ravish'd young;
So I, for my lost darling's sake,
Lament the live day long.
Death, oft I've fear'd thy fatal blow,
Now, fond I bare my breast,
O, do thou kindly lay me low
With him I love, at rest!

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XCIII.

FIRST EPISTLE

TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ.

OF FINTRAY.

[In his manuscript copy of this Epistle the poet says "accompanying a
request. " What the request was the letter which enclosed it relates.
Graham was one of the leading men of the Excise in Scotland, and had
promised Burns a situation as exciseman: for this the poet had
qualified himself; and as he began to dread that farming would be
unprofitable, he wrote to remind his patron of his promise, and
requested to be appointed to a division in his own neighbourhood. He
was appointed in due time: his division was extensive, and included
ten parishes. ]


When Nature her great master-piece designed,
And fram'd her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form'd of various parts the various man.

Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding industry, and sober worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise' whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics' many-apron'd kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net;
The _caput mortuum_ of gross desires
Makes a material for mere knights and squires;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow,
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,
Then marks th' unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines:
Last, she sublimes th' Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.