THE

VISION.

DUAN FIRST.*

THE sun had clos'd the winter day,
The curlers quat their roaring play,
An' hunger'd maukin ta'en her way

To kail-yards green,
While faithless snaws ilk step betray

Whare she has been.

The

*

Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See his Cath-Loda, vol. ii. of M'Pherson's translation.

H 2

The thresher's weary flingin tree The lee-lang day had tired me;

And whan the day had closed his e'e,

Far i' the west,

Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie,

I gaed to rest.

There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek,
I sat and ey'd 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 mus'd 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 an' clarkit

My cash-account:

While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit,

Is a' th' amount.

I started,

I started, mutt'ring, blockhead! coof!
And heav'd 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; And jee! the door gaed to the wa';

An' 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-formed, was crusht; I glowr'd as eerie's I'd been dusht

In some wild glen;

When sweet, like modest worth, she blusht,
And 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;

An' come to stop those reckless vows,

Wou'd soon been broken.

A hair-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;

And such a leg! my bonie 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 tost:
Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast,

With surging foam;

There, distant shone Art's lofty boast,

The lordly dome.

Here,

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 tow'r 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-dy'd steel

In sturdy blows;

While back-recoiling seem'd to reel

Their suthron foes.

*The Wallaces.

His