"Say how, by early lessons taught, Truth's pleasing air is willing caught! Congenial to the untainted thought, The shepherd boy, Who tends his flocks on lonely height, Feels holy joy. Is aught on earth so lovely known, On sabbath morn, and far alone. His guileless soul all naked shown Before his God-- Such prayers must welcome reach the throne And bless'd abode. O tell! with what a heartfelt joy The parent eyes the virtuous boy; And all his constant kind employ, Is how to give The best of _lear_ he can enjoy, As means to live." The scenes of "the Cotter's Saturday Night," one of the sweetest poems in any language, are exact transcripts from real life, as Burns himself intimates. His father was "a godly man," and was wont, morning and evening, to "turn o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, the big ha' Bible," and worship God, with his family. Where in Italy or in Austria will you meet aught so beautiful or thrilling as the following? "The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, They round the ingle form a circle wide, The sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace The big _ha' Bible_ ance his father's pride: His bonnet reverently is laid aside, His lyart haffets[4] wearing thin and 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 their noblest aim; Perhaps _Dundee's_ wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive _Martyrs_ worthy of the name, Or noble Elgin beats the heavenward 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. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme: How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed, How He who bore in Heaven the second name, Had 'not on earth whereon to lay his head;' How his first followers and servants sped; The precepts sage they wrote to many a land: How he who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand; And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.