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O DEATH! if's no thy deed I mourn, Tho aft my heart strings thou hast torn, 'Tis worth an merit left forlorn Life's ills tae dree, Gars now the pearly, brakish burn Gush frae my ee. Is there wha feel the meltin glow O sympathy for ithers' woe? Come, let our tears thegither flow; O join my mane! For Wilson, worthiest of us a, For ay is gane. He bravely strave gainst Fortune's stream While Hope held forth ae distant gleam, Till dasht and dasht, time after time, On Life's rough sea, He weeped his thankless native clime, And sail'd away. The patriot bauld, the social brither, In him war sweetly join'd thegither; He knaves reprov'd, without a swither, In keenest satire; And taught what mankind owe each ither As sons of Nature. If thou hast heard his wee bit wren [1] Wail forth its sorrows through the glen, Tell how his warm, descriptive pen Has thrill'd thy saul; His sensibility sae keen -- He felt for all. Since now he's gane, an Burns is deid, Ah! wha will tune the Scottish reed? Her thistle, dowie, hings its heid -- Her harp's unstrung -- While mountain, river, loch, an mead, Remain unsung. Fareweel, thou much neglected Bard! These lines will speak my warm regard, While strangers on a foreign sward Thy worth hold dear, Still some kind heart thy name shall guard Unsullied here.
[1]Referring to the poem of "The Disconsolate Wren" wailing the destruction of her sixteen bonnie chicks by the fall of a Craig.
© Copyright Len Nicholson, 1996, 1997, 1998