he sent for that ‘Good King of Cats’Young Daniel, who soon did pluck away the beam
From out his eye, and said he did not deem
The sceptre worth a straw - his cushions old door-mats.
A horrid nightmare similar somewhat
Of late has haunted a most motley crew, Most loggerheads and chapmen - we are told
That any Daniel tho’ he be a sot
Can make the lying lips turn pale of hue
By belching out ‘ye are that head of gold.’
Sonnet Written in the Cottage where Burns was Born
This mortal body of a thousand days
Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room,
Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays,
Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom!
My pulse is warm with thine own barley-bree,
My head is light with pledging a great soul,
My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see,
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal;
Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor,
Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find The meadow thou hast tramped o’er and o’er, -
Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind, -
Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name, -
O smile among the shades, for this is fame!
Sonnet to the Nile
Son of the old moon-mountains African!
Chief of the Pyramid and Crocodile!
We call thee fruitful, and, that very while,
A desert fills our seeing’s inward span;
Nurse of swart nations since the world began,
Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile
Such men to honour thee, who, worn with toil,
Rest for a space ‘twixt Cairo and Decan?
O, O may dark fancies err! they surely do;
’Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste Of all beyond itself, thou dost bedew
Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste
The pleasant sunrise, green isles hast thou too,
And to the sea as happily dost haste.
Sonnet on Peace
O Peace! and dost thou with thy presence bless
The dwellings of this war-surrounded Isle;
Soothing with placid brow our late distress,
Making the triple kingdom brightly smile?
Joyful I hail thy presence; and I hail
The sweet companions that await on thee;
Complete my joy - let not my first wish fail,
Let the sweet mountain nymph thy favourite be,
With England’s happiness proclaim Europa’s Liberty.
O Europe! let not sceptred tyrants see That thou must shelter in thy former state;
Keep thy chains burst, and boldly say thou art free;
Give thy kings law - leave not uncurbed the great;
So with the horrors past thou’lt win thy happier fate!
Sonnet on Hearing the Bagpipe and
Seeing ‘The Stranger’ Played at Inverary
Of late two dainties were before me plac’d
Sweet, holy, pure, sacred and innocent,
From the ninth sphere to me benignly sent
That Gods might know my own particular taste:
First the soft Bagpipe moum’d with zealous haste,
The Stranger next with head on bosom bent
Sigh’d; rueful again the piteous Bagpipe went,
Again the Stranger sighings fresh did waste.
O Bagpipe thou didst steal my heart away -
O Stranger thou my nerves from Pipe didst charm - O Bagpipe thou didst reassert thy sway -
Again thou Stranger gav’st me fresh alarm -
Alas! I could not choose. Ah! my poor heart.
Mum chance art thou with both oblig’d to part.
Sonnet: Oh! how I love, on a fair summer’s eve
Oh! how I love, on a fair summer’s eve,
When streams of light pour down the golden west,
And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest
The silver clouds, far - far away to leave
All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve
From little cares; to find, with easy quest,
A fragrant wild, with Nature’s beauty drest,
And there into delight my soul deceive.
There warm my breast with patriotic
