A Vindication: Burns, Excise Officer and Poet

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J. Menzies & Company, Limited, 1897 - Poets, Scottish - 64 pages
 

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Page 28 - Thou ling'ring star, with less'ning ray, That lov'st to greet the early morn, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?
Page 57 - O, WERT thou in the cauld blast, On yonder lea, on yonder lea, My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee. Or did misfortune's bitter storms Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, Thy bield should be my bosom, To share it a', to share it a'.
Page 47 - That hangs his head, and a' that ? The coward-slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that ! For a' that, and a' that, Our toils obscure, and a' that ; The rank is but the guinea stamp ; The man's the gowd for a
Page 12 - How modest, kindly, all-accomplish'd, wise, With what sublime repression of himself, And in what limits, and how tenderly ; Not swaying to this faction or to that; Not making his high place the lawless perch Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantageground For pleasure; but thro...
Page 28 - My Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest ? See'st thou thy lover lowly laid 1 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? ( 263 ) EPPIE ADAffi.
Page 10 - How, at any rate, shall we judge a giant, great in gifts and great in temptation ; great in strength and great in weakness ? Let us glory in his strength and be comforted in his weakness.
Page 48 - Shall hang as high's the steeple ; But while we sing, ' God save the King,' We'll ne'er forget the People.
Page 10 - Had we nothing before us in our futile and halting lives but saints and the ideal we might well fail altogether. We grope blindly along the catacombs of the world, we climb the dark ladder of life, we feel our way to futurity, but we can scarcely see an inch around or before us. We stumble and falter and fall, our hands and knees are bruised and sore, and we look up for light and guidance. Could we see nothing but distant unapproachable impeccability, we might well sink prostrate in the hopelessness...
Page 48 - O let us not like snarling tykes In wrangling be divided; Till, slap, come in an unco loon And wi
Page 10 - Man, after all, is not ripened by virtue alone. Were it so, this world were a paradise of angels. No. Like the growth of the earth, he is the fruit of all...

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