When ance life’s day draws near the gloamin’ Then fareweel vacant careless roamin’; An’ fareweel cheerfu’ tankards foamin’, An’ social noise; An’ fareweel dear deluding woman, The joy of joys! O life, how pleasant is thy morning, Young Fancy’s rays the hills adorning! Cold-pausing Caution’s lesson scorning, We frisk away, Like schoolboys, at th’ expected warning, To joy and play. We wander there, we wander here, We eye the rose upon the brier, Unmindful that the thorn is near, Among the leaves: And tho’ the puny wound appear, Short while it grieves. Some, lucky, find a flow’ry spot, For which they never toil’d nor swat; They drink the sweet and eat the fat, But care or pain; And, haply, eye the barren hut With high disdain. With steady aim, some Fortune chase; Keen hope does ev’ry sinew brace; Thro’ fair, thro’ foul, they urge the race, And seize the prey; Then cannie, in some cozie place, They close the day. And others, like your humble servan’, Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin’, To right or left, eternal swervin’, They zig-zag on; Till curst with age, obscure an’ starvin’, They often groan. Alas! what bitter toil an’ straining— But truce wi’ peevish, poor complaining! Is Fortune’s fickle Luna waning? E’en let her gang! Beneath what light she has remaining, Let’s sing our sang. My pen I here fling to the door, And kneel ‘Ye Pow’rs!’ and warm implore, ‘Tho’ I should wander Terra o’er, In all her climes, Grant me but this, I ask no more, Aye rowth o’ rhymes. ‘Gie dreeping roasts to country lairds, Till icicles hing frae their beards; Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guards, And maids of honour; And yill an’ whisky gie to cairds, Until they sconner. ‘A title, Dempster merits it; A garter gie to Willie Pitt; Gie wealth to some be-ledger’d cit, In cent per cent; But gie me real, sterling wit, And I’m content. ‘While ye are pleased to keep me hale, I’ll sit down o’er my scanty meal, Be’t water-brose, or muslin-kail, Wi’ cheerfu’ face, As lang’s the Muses dinna fail To say the grace.’ An anxious e’e I never throws Behint my lug, or by my nose; I jouk beneath misfortune’s blows As weel’s I may; Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose, I rhyme away.