Читать книгу The Complete Works - Роберт Бернс, Robert Burns - Страница 156
EPITAPHS, EPIGRAMS, FRAGMENTS, ETC., ETC.
ОглавлениеI. ON THE AUTHOR’S FATHER
[William Burness merited his son’s eulogiums: he was an example of piety, patience, and fortitude.]
O ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains,
Draw near with pious rev’rence and attend!
Here lie the loving husband’s dear remains,
The tender father and the gen’rous friend.
The pitying heart that felt for human woe;
The dauntless heart that feared no human pride;
The friend of man, to vice alone a foe;
“For ev’n his failings lean’d to virtue’s side.”
II. ON R.A., ESQ.
[Robert Aiken, Esq., to whom “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” is addressed: a kind and generous man.]
Know thou, O stranger to the fame
Of this much lov’d, much honour’d name!
(For none that knew him need be told)
A warmer heart death ne’er made cold.
III. ON A FRIEND
[The name of this friend is neither mentioned nor alluded to in any of the poet’s productions.]
An honest man here lies at rest
As e’er God with his image blest!
The friend of man, the friend of truth;
The friend of age, and guide of youth;
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so inform’d:
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.
IV. FOR GAVIN HAMILTON
[These lines allude to the persecution which Hamilton endured for presuming to ride on Sunday, and say, “damn it,” in the presence of the minister of Mauchline.]
The poor man weeps—here Gavin sleeps,
Whom canting wretches blam’d:
But with such as he, where’er he be,
May I be sav’d or damn’d!
V. ON WEE JOHNNY. HIC JACET WEE JOHNNY.
[Wee Johnny was John Wilson, printer of the Kilmarnock edition of Burns’s Poems: he doubted the success of the speculation, and the poet punished him in these lines, which he printed unaware of their meaning.]
Whoe’er thou art, O reader, know,
That death has murder’d Johnny!
An’ here his body lies fu’ low—
For saul he ne’er had ony.
VI. ON JOHN DOVE, INNKEEPER, MAUCHLINE.
[John Dove kept the Whitefoord Arms in Mauchline: his religion is made to consist of a comparative appreciation of the liquors he kept.]
Here lies Johnny Pidgeon;
What was his religion?
Wha e’er desires to ken,
To some other warl’
Maun follow the carl,
For here Johnny Pidgeon had nane!
Strong ale was ablution—
Small beer, persecution,
A dram was memento mori;
But a full flowing bowl
Was the saving his soul,
And port was celestial glory.
VII. ON A WAG IN MAUCHLINE
[This laborious and useful wag was the “Dear Smith, thou sleest pawkie thief,” of one of the poet’s finest epistles: he died in the West Indies.]
Lament him, Mauchline husbands a’,
He aften did assist ye;
For had ye staid whole weeks awa,
Your wives they ne’er had missed ye.
Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye press
To school in bands thegither,
O tread ye lightly on his grass,—
Perhaps he was your father.
VIII. ON A CELEBRATED RULING ELDER
[Souter Hood obtained the distinction of this Epigram by his impertinent inquiries into what he called the moral delinquencies of Burns.]
