Is there, in human form, that bears a heart,
A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!
That can with studied, sly, ensnaring art
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? 85
Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling, smooth!
Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,[43]
Points to the parents fondling' o'er their child?
Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild! 90
But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The healsome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food;[44]
The soupe[45] their only hawkie[46] does afford,
That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood;[47]
The dame brings forth in complimental mood, 95
To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck, fell;[48]
And aft he's pressed, and aft he ca's it guid;[49]
The frugal wine, garrulous, will tell,
How 't was a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.[50]
The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face 100
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace
The big ha'-Bible,[51] ance[52] his father's pride.
His bonnet[53] rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets[54] wearing thin and bare; 105
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,[55]
He wales[56] a portion with judicious care;
And, "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: 110
Perhaps Dundee's[57] wild warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs,[57] worthy of the name;
Or noble Elgin[57] beets[58] the heavenward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays.
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; 115
The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise,
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.[59]
The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;[60]
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 120
With Amalek's ungracious progeny;[61]
Or, how the royal Bard[62] did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint,[63] and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; 125
Or other holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the Christian volume[64] is the theme:
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay His head; 130
How His first followers and servants sped;[65]
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:[66]
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced
by Heaven's command.[67] 135
Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,"[68]
That thus they all shall meet in future days,
There ever bask in uncreated rays, 140
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, 145
In all the pomp of method, and of art;
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart,
The Power,[69] incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; 150
But haply,[70] in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul,
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.
Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest: 155
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 160
For them and for their little ones provide;
But, chiefly, in their hearts with Grace Divine preside.
From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad;
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,[71] 165
"An honest man's the noblest work of God:"[72]
And certes,[73] in fair Virtue's heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, 170
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined!