Yet still (for I am quite sincere)
You're mighty pretty,-true, my dear;

But, like your pretty sex,
You've here and there, and now and then
A failing; for like other men,
I now can spy

defects.

Yet once with coward fondness curs'd, My poor weak heart I fear'd would burst

At thought of separation: But now despise my feeble chain, And bless the salutary pain

That cur'd me of my passion.

Impatient of his iron cage,
The bird thus spends his little rage,

And 'scapes with shatter'd wings: But soon with new-fledg'd pinions soars, And hast'ning to his native bow'rs,

A joyful welcome sings.

Fond female vanity will say,
These long harangues they sure betray

A heart that's hankering still :
This passion so proclaim'd in song,
This tale so pleasing to the tongue,

Does it not touch the will?

Lovers, like soldiers, Molly, dwell
With pleasure on the horrid tale,

When all the danger's o'er:
Like other slaves from fetters free,
We smile with anxious joy, to see

The chains which once we wore.

In kind indulgence to a heart,
Engag‘d in so severe a part,

This sweet revenge I write ;
Rail, weep, be woman all, for I
Lull'd in indifference, defy

Your fondness or your spite.

A frail false maid I lost, but you
A man, fond, generous, and true;

Which fortune is the worse? Try all love's mighty empire round, A faithful lover's seldom found;

A jilt's a common curse.

THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND.

[SMOLLETT.)

1746.

MOURN, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn!
Thy sons, for valour long renown'd,
Lie slaughter'd on their native ground:
Thy hospitable roofs no more
Invite the stranger to the door ;
In smoky ruins sunk they lie,
The monuments of cruelty.

The wretched owner sees afar His all become the prey of war ; Bethinks him of his babe, and wife, Then smites his breast, and curses life! Thy swains are famish'd on the rocks Where once they fed their wanton flocks : Thy ravish'd virgins shriek in vain; Thy infants perish on the plain.

What boots it then, in every clime Through the wide-spreading waste of time,

Thy martial glory, crown'd with praise,
Still shone with undiminish'd blaze?
Thy towering spirit now is broke,
Thy neck is bended to the yoke.
What foreign arms could never quell,

rage

and rancour fell.

By civil

The rural pipe and merry lay
No more shall cheer the happy day:
No social scenes of

gay delight
Beguile the dreary winter night :
No strains, but those of sorrow flow,
And nought be heard but sounds of wo,
While the pale phantoms of the slain
Glide nightly o'er the silent plain.

O baneful cause! oh, fatal morn, Accurs’d to ages yet unborn! The sons against their fathers stood, The parent shed his children's blood. Yet, when the rage of battle ceas'd, The victor's soul was not appeas'd; The naked and forlorn must feel Devouring flames, and murdering steel!

The pious mother, doom'd to death, Forsaken wanders o'er the heath,

The bleak wind whistles round her head,
Her helpless orphans cry for bread;
Bereft of shelter, food, and friend,
She views the shades of night descend,
And stretch'd beneath th' inclement skies,
Weeps o'er her tender babes and dies.

While the warm blood bedews my veins,
And unimpair'd remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country's fate,
Within

my filial breast shall beat;
And, spite of her insulting foe,
My sympathising verse shall flow :

Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn.'

ODE TO LEVEN WATER.

[IBID.]

On Leven's banks, while free to rove,
And tune the rural pipe to love ;
I envied not the happiest swain
That ever trod th' Arcadian plain.