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Fragment of an Epistle to Mr W.H.D---

By James Orr

‘Tis no 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.