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Insist upon your lawfu' dues,

And ne'er be stintet;

For, please your reverence, in my views, You're far ahint yet.

Ye little ken the begging knack,
Else sooner might ye ha'e it back,
Which wad again make up your pack,

And gaur ye craw,

And syne ye might your fingers crack, At ane and a'.

As independent wad ye be,

Ye stars and pillars o' the Free,

And soon, ye worthies, may ye see

That happy day!

The glorious pocket jubilee,

I humbly pray.

My blessings on ye now, in fine;

In gear and grace lang may ye shine,

To be an honour to the line,

By your example;

And on your

end

may peace divine

Rest rich and ample.

TO A CHILD WHILE SLEEPING.

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DEACE to thy slumbers, let me sing,
Dear little playful, happy thing;

Thy prattle over, now alone,
Sleep, lovely cherub, soft sleep on!
How magic on that mien of thine
The mirror'd rose and lily twine!
What imaged innocence we trace,
With every other native grace,
Blending and varying, glorious bright,
Like rays of pure, unmingled light!
How with such fascinating charms,
Spell-bound the heart instinctive warms!
Devoutly would I bow the knee,
In Nature's homage now to thee.
Dear source of many sighs and prayers,
Fountain of fears and endless cares,
Embryo of hope, sweet promise young
Of joys by Fancy fondly sung.
Fair pilgrim in the porch of life,
Strange to its turmoil and its strife,

The griefs, the sorrows that assail,

And here humanity impale;

The perils that ensconce our way,
As through life's howling wild we stray:
But ah! should Heaven with thee forbear,
And deign thy fragile form to spare,

Thy fairy loveliness, alas !

Doomed as the flower's, like it shall pass.
And ah! indeed, how brief the while!
Ere sighs and sobs supplant the smile,
Soon shalt thou find-who finds it not?—
At best a vale of tears thy lot.

THE CREATION.

SUPPLICATE not here those powers of thine, My Muse, immortal Clio, to inspire; But the grand hero of my theme divine, May He alone now string my Epic lyre, And touch my lips with coals of living fire From His own altar, that it may be mine, Though but of yesterday, to image forth His majesty eternal, and adore

The peerless glories of Infinite Power.

Stupendous enigma, o'erwhelming thought,
Ere yet Time's sapping streams began to flow,
And Nature into being first was brought,
Ere lighted was yon sun, or learned to glow,
Six thousand changeful misty years ago,
O'er the eternal barren womb of nought,
The Sovereign Omnipotent I AM

His golden rod forth stretched, at His decree
Emerged the elements of all that be.

In darkness wrapt this void-suspended world
A heterogeneous mass still slumbering lay,
O'er which the empyreal essence hovering hurled
Forth by His fiat first the gladdening day,
A word-its new-born beams began to play,
And night's cimmerian curtains next were furled,
Which the Omnific, with approving smile
Of wisdom and complacency, surveyed,
In all the pomp of majesty arrayed.

Above the dread terraqueous profound,
By His imperial and supreme behest,
Heaven's azure canopy next rose around,
With fleecy clouds bright mantling o'er its breast,
Beneath whose silvery fantastic crest

Aquatic treasures secretly He bound,

Young vestal Nature subsequent to nurse,
By their resuscitating genial powers,
In bland libations of distilling showers.

At His primordial and august command
The liquid element obsequious rolled;
Next to its grand receptacle the land,
A spongy, sinking labyrinth of mould,
With bosom unprolific yet and cold,
Arose beneath His talismanic hand,

Which with a vernal flowery robe He flushed,
And hence with trees and shrubs adorned profuse,
With properties their kinds to reproduce.

Again announced that high and holy One,
Who filleth all eternity and time,

Let there be lights—their radiant beams be thrown
The fairy world across from clime to clime;
Then by his power all glorious and sublime,
Synchronous with His will forth glowing shone,
The sun the day, the moon the night to rule,
Unnumbered orbs of ether burning bright
Proclaimed in silent eloquence His might.

Beneath of His omniscient eye the glance,
As paramountly good thus all arose,
Still farther still His glory to advance,
Eternal Goodness all benignly chose
Anew His godlike wonders to disclose,
By His anomalous munificence,
In lavishly with life repleting all:
Whose multifarious infinite displays
Defy conception and transcend all praise.

He spoke, the liquid fathomless abyss
Its finny nations at His mandate poured,
While by that all-creative power of His,
O mystery, and ne'er to be explored!
With being gay the ambient vast He stored,
To revel there in liberty and bliss,

Which glorious with His benediction bland,
As good He crowned, and hence on all enjoined
To propagate and multiply their kind.

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