THE Robert Burns. COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. "Let not ambition mock their useful toil, MY GRAY. Y loved, my honoured, 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 sequestered scene; November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; This night his weekly moil is at an end— And At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee things, todlin, stacher thro' To meet their dad wi' flichterin noise and glee. His wee bit ingle blinkin' bonnilie, His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, 'The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary, carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labour and his toil. Belyve the elder bairns come drappin' in- Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her c'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. Wi' joy unfeigned, brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers; The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet; Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; The parents, partial, eye their hopeful yearsAnticipation forward points the view. The mother, wi' her needle an' her sheers, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due : Their masters' and their mistresses' command An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night! Implore His counsel and assisting might: They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright! But hark! a rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake. Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben— The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye; But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae graveWeel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave. O happy love! where love like this is found! And sage experience bids me this declare- 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale. Is there, in human form that bears a heart, A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Points to the parents fondling o'er their childThen paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild? But now the supper crowns their simple board: That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cud; To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck fell, An' aft he's pressed, and aft he ca's it good; The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell. The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face His lyart haffets wearin' thin and bare; And "Let us worship God!" he says with solemn air. They chant their artless notes in simple guise; Perhaps Dundee's wild, warbling measures rise, e; The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise- The priest-like father reads the sacred page: With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme: How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay His head; How His first followers and servants sped The precepts sage they wrote to many a land; How he, who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command. Then kneeling down to Heaven's eternal King, |