1804 Poem, James Orr, 'A Fragment of an Epistle to Mr. W. H. D—'

’Tis no the malice o’ the hale,

’Tis no the looms untunefu’ peal,

The ragged coat, an’ hamely meal,

That keenly sting;

But something else — I see and feel,

But canna sing.

O Nature! cud I set your stage,

Wi’ a its scen’ry on my page!

My rainbows points the earth sud guage,

My wild-fire wander;

An’ lakes an’ rivers smile and rage,

Wi’ grace an’ grandeur.

The purplin’ morn, and pensive eve,

Sud a their fine, fair tints receive;

My cliff sud frown, my echo rave,

My shamrock smell,

My night appear as gran’ly grave

As night hersel.

My thun’er dreadfully sud soun’,

An’ still the hum o’ hazy noon;

Hill, wood, an’ grove, sud (smiling roun’)

Sing, low, and bleat;

An’ rough cascades come dashin’ down,

In savage state.

Or cud my manners-paintin’ rhymes

“Haud up the mirror” to the times,

I’d sing how av’rice gnaws folks wymes,

How folly tipples,

An’ how ambition thins the climes

That love re-peoples.

The tragedy o’ doeless Dodd

Frae shame sud free him if I cud:

Some “village Hampdens” patriot blood

Sud issue, glorious,

Some Wolfe aince mair sud thank his God,

And die victorious —

I needna strive. My want and woe

Unnerves the energies, you know;

Yet Nature prompts my muse, tho’ slow

An’ faints her fires:

The cuckoo sings obscurely low,

The lark aspires.

Coy science spurn’d me frae her knee,

An’ fortune bad my shuttle flee;

But, a’ the while, smit strangely wi’

The love o’ sang,

I rudely rhyme the scenes I see,

Whare’er I gang.