Robert Burns.
All hearts are his—with high and low,1
The Doon in fancy seems to flow2
To music all its own :3
The village maiden to his lays4
Her simple, artless homage pays—5
The Queen upon the throne !6
All that the cottage-hearth endears—7
All that can move to mirth or tears,8
In his sweet song combine :9
And pictured there with simplest grace,10
Old times and manners we may trace11
In ev’ry living line.12
And need we say that, in his page13
Are strains that must, from age to age,14
When clouds are in her sky,15
Speak to his country’s glowing heart,16
And bid her ever act her part,17
As in the days gone by !18
Nor upon earth alone he reigns,19
Nor heaven alone on his domains20
Shines with wide-spreading ray ;21
But things unearthly and of night,22
And lighted by no heav’nly
light,23
His mighty spell obey !24
And never can it be forgot,25
That hard as was our poet’s lot,26
Left in cold want to pine,27
No poor and servile arts he knew,28
But ever to himself was true,29
And to his art divine.30
No fear that Time with men like him,31
The radiance of Fame should dim—32
And for this simple cause—33
That Time has, happily, no force34
To change the onward, even course35
Of Nature and her laws.36
“ The daisy,” therefore, still must grow—37
The hills where Lugar loves to flow,38
Still meet “ the winter sun”—39
And Nature’s poet still must hold,40
Amidst her streams and “ mountains old,”41
The place that he has won !42