O ye douce folk, that live by rule, Grave, tideless-blooded, calm, and cool, Compar’d wi’ you—O fool! fool! fool! How much unlike! Your hearts are just a standing pool, Your lives a dyke! Nae hare-brain’d sentimental traces, In your unletter’d, nameless faces! In arioso trills and graces Ye never stray, But gravissimo, solemn basses, Ye hum away. Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye’re wise; Nae ferly tho’ ye do despise The hairum-scairum, ram-stam boys, The rattlin’ squad: I see you upward cast your eyes— Ye ken the road. Whilst I—but I shall haud me there— Wi’ you I’ll scarce gang ony where— Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair, But quat my sang, Content with You to mak a pair, Where’er I gang. THE KIRK OF LAMINGTON As cauld a wind as ever blew, A cauld kirk, and in’t but few; As cauld a minister’s ever spak— Ye’se a’ be het or I come back! YE BANKS AND BRAES Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae weary fu’ o’ care? Thou’lt break my heart, thou warbling bird, That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn: Thou minds me o’ departed joys, Departed never to return. Aft hae I rov’d by bonnie Doon, To see the rose and woodbine twine; And ilka bird sang o’ its love, And fondly sae did I o’ mine. Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose, Fu’ sweet upon its thorny tree; And my fause lover stole my rose, But ah! he left the thorn wi’ me. NOW WESTLIN WINDS Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns Bring autumn’s pleasant weather; The moorcock springs, on whirring wings, Amang the blooming heather: Now waving grain, wide o’er the plain, Delights the weary farmer; And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night To muse upon my charmer. The partridge loves the fruitful fells; The plover loves the mountains; The woodcock haunts the lonely dells; The soaring hern the fountains: Thro’ lofty groves the cushat roves, The path of man to shun it; The hazel bush o’erhangs the thrush, The spreading thorn the linnet. Thus ev’ry kind their pleasure find, The savage and the tender; Some social join, and leagues combine; Some solitary wander; Avaunt, away! the cruel sway, Tyrannic man’s dominion; The sportsman’s joy, the murdering cry, The fluttering, gory pinion!