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Poem by Robert Burns
The Vision
DUAN FIRST.
The sun had closed the winter day,
The curlers quat their roarin’ play,
An’ hunger’d maukin taen her way
To kail-yards green,
While faithless snaws ilk step betray
Where she has been.
The thresher’s weary flingin’-tree
The lee-lang day had tired me;
And when the day had clos’d his e’e,
Far i’ the west,
Ben i’ the spenoe, right pensivelie,
I gaed to rest.
There lanely by the ingle-cheek
I sat and eyed the spewing reek,
That fill’d, wi’ hoast-provoking smeek,
The auld clay biggin’;
An’ heard the restless rattons squeak
About the riggin’.
All in this mottie misty clime,
I backward mused on wasted time,
How I had spent my youthfu’ prime,
An’ done nae-thing,
But stringin’ blethers up in rhyme
For fools to sing.
Had I to guid advice but harkit,
I might, by this, hae led a market,
Or strutted in a bank, and clarkit
My cash-account:
While here, half-mad, half-fed, haif-sarkit,
Is a’ th’ amount.
I started, mutt’ring ‘blockhead! coof!’
And heaved on high my waukit loof.
To swear by a’ yon starry roof,
Or some rash aith,
That I, henceforth, would be rhyme-proof
Till my last breath-
When click! the string the snick did draw;
An’ jee! the door gaed to the wa’;
And by my ingle-lowe I saw,
Now bleezin’ bright,
A tight outlandish hizzie, braw,
Come full in sight.
Ye need na doubt I held my whisht;
The infant aith, half-form’d, was crusht;
I glowr’d as eerie ‘s I’d been dusht
In some wild glen;
When sweet, like modest worth, she blusht,
An’ stepped ben.
Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs
Were twisted, gracefu’, round her brows;
I took her for some Scottish Muse
By that same token;
And come to stop these reckless vows,
Would soon been broken.
A hare-brain’d, sentimental trace,
Was strongly marked in her face;
A wildly-witty rustic grace
Shone full upon her;
Her eye, ev’n turn’d on empty space,
Beam’d keen with honour.
Down flow’d her robe, a tartan sheen,
Till half a leg was scrimply seen;
An’ such a leg! my bonnie Jean
Could only peer it;
Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean,
Nane else came near it.
Her mantle large, of greenish hue,
My gazing wonder chiefly drew;
Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw
A lustre grand;
And seem’d to my astonish’d view
A well-known land.
Here rivers in the sea were lost;
There mountains to the skies were test:
Here tumbling billows mark’d the coast
With surging foam;
There, distant shone Art’s lofty boast,
The lordly dome.
Here Doon pour’d down his far-fetch’d floods;
There well-fed Irwine stately thuds;
Auld hermit Ayr staw thro’ his woods,
On to the shore;
And many a lesser torrent scuds,
With seeming roar.
Low in a sandy valley spread,
An ancient borough rear’d her head;
Still, as in Scottish story read,
She boasts a race,
To ev’ry nobler virtue bred,
And polish’d grace.
By stately tower or palace fair,
Or ruins pendent in the air,
Bold stems of heroes, here and there,
I could discern;
Some seem’d to muse, some seem’d to dare,
With feature stern.
My heart did glowing transport feel,
To see a race heroic wheel,
And brandish round, the deep-dyed steel
In sturdy blows;
While back-recoiling seem’d to reel
Their Suthron foes.
His Country’s Saviour, mark him well!
Bold Richardton’s heroic swell;
The Chief-on Sark who glorious fell,
In high command;
And he whom ruthless fates expel
His native land.
There, where a sceptred Pictish shade
Stalk’d round his ashes lowly laid,
I mark’d a martial race, pourtray’d
In colours strong;
Bold, soldier-featur’d, undismay’d
They strode along.
Thro’ many a wild romantic grove,
Near many a hermit-fancied cove
(Fit haunts for Friendship or for Love
In musing mood)
An aged Judge, I saw him rove
Dispensing good.
With deep-struck reverential awe
The learned Sire and Son I saw;
To Nature’s God and Nature’s law
They gave their lore;
This, all its source and end to draw,
That, to adore.
Brydon’s brave ward I well could spy,
Beneath old Scotia’s smiling eye;
Who call’d on Fame, low standing by,
To hand him on,
Where many a patriot name on high,
And hero shone.
DUAN SECOND.
WITH musing-deep astonish’d stare,
I view’d the heavenly-seeming Fair;
A whisp’ring throb did witness bear
Of kindred sweet,
When with an elder Sister’s air
She did me greet.
‘All hail! my own inspired bard!
In me thy native Muse regard!
Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard,
Thus poorly low;
I come to give thee such reward
As we bestow.
‘Know the great Genius of this land
Has many a light aerial band,
Who, all beneath his high command,
Harmoniously,
As arts or arms they understand,
Their labours ply.
‘They Scotia’s race among them share:
Some fire the soldier on to dare;
Some rouse the patriot up to bare
Corruption’s heart:
Some teach the bard, a darling care,
The tuneful art.
‘‘Mong swelling floods of reeking gore,
They, ardent, kindling spirits pour;
Or, ‘mid the venal senate’s roar,
They, sightless, stand,
To mend the honest patriot lore,
And grace the hand.
‘And when the bard, or hoary sage,
Charm or instruct the future age,
They bind the wild poetic rage
In energy,
Or point the inconclusive page
Full on the eye.
‘Hence Fullarton, the brave and young;
Hence Dempster’s zeal-inspired tongue;
Hence sweet harmonious Beattie sang
His Minstrel lays,
Or tore, with noble ardour stung,
The sceptic’s bays.
‘To lower orders are assign’d
The humbler ranks of human-kind,
The rustic bard, the lab’ring hind,
The artisan;
All choose, as various they’re inclin’d,
The various man.
‘When yellow waves the heavy grain,
The threat’ning storm some strongly rein;
Some teach to meliorate the plain
With tillage-skill;
And some instruct the shepherd-train,
Blythe o’er the hill.
‘Some hint the lover’s harmless wile;
Some grace the maiden’s artless smile;
Some soothe the lab’rer’s weary toil
For humble gains,
And make his cottage-scenes beguile
His cares and pains.
‘Some, bounded to a district-space,
Explore at large man’s infant race,
To mark the embryotic trace
Of rustic bard;
And careful note each op’ning grace,
A guide and guard.
‘Of these am I-Coila my name;
And this district as mine I claim,
Where once the Campbells, chiefs of fame,
Held ruling pow’r:
I mark’d thy embryo-tuneful flame,
Thy natal hour.
‘With future hope I oft would gaze,
Fond, on thy little early ways,
Thy rudely-caroll’d, chiming phrase,
In uncouth rhymes,-
Fired at the simple artless lays
Of other times.
‘I saw thee seek the sounding shore,
Delighted with the dashing roar;
Or when the North his fleecy store
Drove thro’ the sky,
I saw grim Nature’s visage hoar
Struck thy young eye.
‘Or when the deep green-mantled Earth
Warm-cherish’d ev’ry flow’ret’s birth,
And joy and music pouring forth
In ev’ry grove,
I saw thee eye the gen’ral mirth
With boundless love.
‘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 can I 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
The 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.
Robert Burns
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