O happy love! where love like this is found; O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! I’ve pacèd much this weary mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare— ‘If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, ’Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair In other’s arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.’ Is there, in human form, that bears a heart— A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth— That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny’s unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjur’d arts, dissembling smooth! Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil’d? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o’er their child? Then paints the ruin’d maid, and their distraction wild? But now the supper crowns their simple board, The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia’s food: The sowpe their only hawkie does afford, That ’yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; The dame brings forth in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hain’d kebbuck, fell; And aft he’s prest, and aft he ca’s it good; The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell How ’twas a towmond auld sin’ lint was i’ the bell. The cheerfu’ supper done, wi’ serious face They round the ingle form a circle wide; The sire turns o’er, with patriarchal grace, The big ha’-bible, ance his father’s pride: His bonnet rev’rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets wearing thin an’ bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide— He wales a portion with judicious care, And ‘Let us worship God!’ he says with solemn air. They chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps Dundee’s wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name; Or noble Elgin beets the heav’nward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia’s holy lays: Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our Creator’s praise. The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek’s ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire; Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah’s wild seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.