The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV., page 99 by Various Authors
<< Return to Title Details & Download100
s social union, An' justifies that ill opinion Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion An' fellow mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen icher in a thrave 'S a sma' request; I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave An' never miss't!
Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'! An' naething, now, to big anew ane, O' foppage green! An' bleak December's winds ensuin', Baith snell and keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, An' weary winter comin' fast, An' cozie here beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till crash! the cruel coulter past Out thro' thy cell.
That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble, Nor house nor hald, To thole the winter's sleety dribble An' cranreuch cold!
But, mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promised joy.
Still thou art blest, compared with _me!_ The present only toucheth thee: But och! I backward cast my e'e, On prospects drear; An' forward, though I canna see, I guess and fear!
Poor Burns! Seventy years and more have passed since that cold November morning on which he sang this simple and tender song, yet it is as fresh in its rustic pathos, bathed in the quickening dews of the poet's heart, as if it had sprung from the soul but an hour since: and fresh it will still be long after the fragile hand now tracing this tribute to the heart of love from which it flowed shall have been cold in an unknown grave!
Such poems are worth folios of the erudite and stilted pages which are now so rapidly pouring their scoria around us. Men seem ashamed now to be simply natural. Either they have ceased to love, or to believe in the dignity of loving. The great barrier to all real greatness in this present age of our