CXXIII.
ELEGY
ON
MISS BURNET,
OF MONBODDO.
[This beautiful and accomplished lady, the heavenly Burnet, as Burns loved to call her, was daughter to the odd and the elegant, the clever and the whimsical Lord Monboddo. “In domestic circumstances,” says Robert Chambers, “Monboddo was particularly unfortunate. His wife, a very beautiful woman, died in child-bed. His son, a promising boy, in whose education he took great delight, was likewise snatched from his affections by a premature death; and his second daughter, in personal loveliness one of the first women of the age, was cut off by consumption, when only twenty-five years old.” Her name was Elizabeth.]
Life ne’er exulted in so rich a prize
As Burnet, lovely from her native skies;
Nor envious death so triumph’d in a blow,
As that which laid th’ accomplish’d Burnet low.
Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget?
In richest ore the brightest jewel set!
In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown,
As by his noblest work, the Godhead best is known.
In vain ye flaunt in summer’s pride, ye groves;
Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore,
Ye woodland choir that chant your idle loves,
Ye cease to charm—Eliza is no more!
Ye heathy wastes, immix’d with reedy fens;
Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stor’d;
Ye rugged cliffs, o’erhanging dreary glens,
To you I fly, ye with my soul accord.