No More Learning

IV.

Than I, no lonely hermit plac'd
Where never human footstep trac'd,
Less fit to play the part;
The lucky moment to improve,
And just to stop, and just to move,
With self-respecting art:
But, ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys,
Which I too keenly taste,
The solitary can despise,
Can want, and yet be blest!
He needs not, he heeds not,
Or human love or hate,
Whilst I here, must cry here
At perfidy ingrate!

V.

Oh! enviable, early days,
When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze,
To care, to guilt unknown!
How ill exchang'd for riper times,
To feel the follies, or the crimes,
Of others, or my own!
Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish!
The losses, the crosses,
That active man engage!
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim declining age!

* * * * *




[Illustration: "THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. "]

XLIII.

THE

COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ.
"Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure:
Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor. "

GRAY

[The house of William Burns was the scene of this fine, devout, and
tranquil drama, and William himself was the saint, the father, and the
husband, who gives life and sentiment to the whole. "Robert had
frequently remarked to me," says Gilbert Burns, "that he thought there
was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, 'Let us worship
God! ' used by a decent sober head of a family, introducing family
worship. " To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for
the "Cotter's Saturday Night. " He owed some little, however, of the
inspiration to Fergusson's "Farmer's Ingle," a poem of great merit.
The calm tone and holy composure of the Cotter's Saturday Night have
been mistaken by Hogg for want of nerve and life. "It is a dull,
heavy, lifeless poem," he says, "and the only beauty it possesses, in
my estimation, is, that it is a sort of family picture of the poet's
family. The worst thing of all, it is not original, but is a decided
imitation of Fergusson's beautiful pastoral, 'The Farmer's Ingle:' I
have a perfect contempt for all plagiarisms and imitations. "
Motherwell tries to qualify the censure of his brother editor, by
quoting Lockhart's opinion--at once lofty and just, of this fine
picture of domestic happiness and devotion. ]


I.

My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end:
My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise:
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! tho' his work unknown, far happier there, I ween!

II.

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;
The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh:
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does homeward bend.