Say, Kingston, tell us where is Evan? Thy bard o’ pure poetic leaven! And is he still amang the livin’? Or plumed supernal, Has taen a jink and aff to heaven, There sing eternal! Or if within your bounds you find him, A’ bruised and broken, skilfu’ bind him; Or sick, or sair, O! carefu’ mind him, Thy darling chiel! And dinna lat him look behind him Until he’s weel. But if he’s gane, ah, wae’s to me! His like we never mair shall see,— Nae servile, whinging coof was he, Led by a string, But noble, gen’rous, fearless, free, His sang he’d sing. Hech, sirs! we badly could bide loss him, For should this world vindictive toss him. Or ony hizzie dare to boss him. Clean gyte he’d set her; The deil himsel’, he daur’dna cross him, Faith, he ken’d better! Let any man, o’ any station, But wink at fraud, or wrong the nation, E’en gowd, nor place, ’twas nae temptation To sic a chiel,— He’d shortly settle their oration, And drub them weel. Or let them say’t, be’t high or low, Auld Scotia ever met the foe, That laid her in the dust fu’ low, Right at them see him! Professor George still rues the blow MacColl did gie him. Is history in Fiction’s grip, Does Falsehood let her bloodhounds slip, Crack goes his castigating whip, With patriot scorn! Macaulay laid upon his hip. Amidst the corn. Does English critic meanly itch, To cast old Ossian in the ditch, And trail his laurels through the pitch Of mind benighted; Our bardie gies his lugs a twitch And sees it righted. In a’ this warld, there’s no a skellum, Nor silly self-conceited blellum, But Evan, lad, wad bravely tell ’em The honest truth; E’en if he kend that they should fell ’im Withouten ruth. Ye feathered things in mournfu’ tune, Come join my waesome, doleful croon; Ye dogs that bay the silver moon, Your sorrow show it; And a’ ye tearfu’ starns aboon, Bewail our poet. What though this grasping world, and hard, May barely grant him just reward, Still shall his genius blissful starred, Effulgent shine, And endless ages praise the bard Of fair Loch Fyne.