No More Learning

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.

III.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher thro'
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily.
His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie Wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile,
An' makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.

IV.

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out amang the farmers roun':
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neebor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown,
Or deposite her sair won penny-fee,
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

V.

With joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet,
An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers:
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd, fleet;
Each tells the unco's that he sees or hears;
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view.