Whae’er ye be that woman love, To this be never blind; Nae ferlie ’tis tho’ fickle she prove, A woman has’t by kind. O Woman lovely, Woman fair! An angel form’s faun to thy share, ’Twad been o’er meikle to gi’en thee mair— I mean an angel mind. Impromptu Lines To Captain Riddell On Returning a Newspaper. 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! Lines To John M’Murdo, Esq. Of Drumlanrig Sent with some of the Author’s Poems. O could I give thee India’s wealth, As I this trifle send; Because thy joy in both would be To share them with a friend. But golden sands did never grace The Heliconian stream; Then take what gold could never buy— An honest bard’s esteem. Rhyming Reply To A Note From Captain Riddell Dear, Sir, at ony time or tide, I’d rather sit wi’ you than ride, Though ’twere wi’ royal Geordie: And trowth, your kindness, soon and late, Aft gars me to mysel’ look blate— The Lord in Heav’n reward ye! R. Burns. Ellisland. Caledonia—A Ballad Tune—“Caledonian Hunts’ Delight” of Mr. Gow. There was once a day, but old Time wasythen young, That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line, From some of your northern deities sprung, (Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine?) From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain, To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would: Her heav’nly relations there fixed her reign, And pledg’d her their godheads to warrant it good. A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war, The pride of her kindred, the heroine grew: Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore,— “Whoe’er shall provoke thee, th’ encounter shall rue!” With tillage or pasture at times she would sport, To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn; But chiefly the woods were her fav’rite resort, Her darling amusement, the hounds and the horn.