“When ripen’d fields and azure skies Call’d forth the reapers’ rustling noise, I saw thee leave their ev’ning joys, And lonely stalk, To vent thy bosom’s swelling rise, In pensive walk. “When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong, Keen-shivering, shot thy nerves along, Those accents grateful to thy tongue, Th’ adored Name, I taught thee how to pour in song, To soothe thy flame. “I saw thy pulse’s maddening play, Wild send thee Pleasure’s devious way, Misled by Fancy’s meteor-ray, By passion driven; But yet the light that led astray Was light from Heaven. “I taught thy manners-painting strains, The loves, the ways of simple swains, Till now, o’er all my wide domains Thy fame extends; And some, the pride of Coila’s plains, Become thy friends. “Thou canst not learn, nor I can show, To paint with Thomson’s landscape glow; Or wake the bosom-melting throe, With Shenstone’s art; Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow Warm on the heart. “Yet, all beneath th’ unrivall’d rose, T e lowly daisy sweetly blows; Tho’ large the forest’s monarch throws His army shade, Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows, Adown the glade. “Then never murmur nor repine; Strive in thy humble sphere to shine; And trust me, not Potosi’s mine, Nor king’s regard, Can give a bliss o’ermatching thine, A rustic bard. “To give my counsels all in one, Thy tuneful flame still careful fan: Preserve the dignity of Man, With soul erect; And trust the Universal Plan Will all protect. “And wear thou this”—she solemn said, And bound the holly round my head: The polish’d leaves and berries red Did rustling play; And, like a passing thought, she fled In light away. [To Mrs. Stewart of Stair, Burns presented a manuscript copy of the Vision. That copy embraces about twenty stanzas at the end of Duan First, which he cancelled when he came to print the price in his Kilmarnock volume. Seven of these he restored in printing his second edition, as noted on p. 174. The following are the verses which he left unpublished.] Suppressed Stanza’s Of “The Vision” After 18th stanza of the text (at “His native land”):— With secret throes I marked that earth, That cottage, witness of my birth; And near I saw, bold issuing forth In youthful pride, A Lindsay race of noble worth, Famed far and wide. Where, hid behind a spreading wood, An ancient Pict-built mansion stood, I spied, among an angel brood, A female pair; Sweet shone their high maternal blood, And father’s air.^1