The Complete Works of Robert Burns Part 84

LXVIII.

JESSY LEWARS.

[Written on the blank side of a list of wild beasts, exhibiting in Dumfries. "Now," said the poet, who was then very ill, "it is fit to be presented to a lady."]

Talk not to me of savages From Afric's burning sun, No savage e'er could rend my heart As, Jessy, thou hast done.

But Jessy's lovely hand in mine, A mutual faith to plight, Not even to view the heavenly choir Would be so blest a sight.

LXIX.

THE TOAST.

[One day, when Burns was ill and seemed in slumber, he observed Jessy Lewars moving about the house with a light step lest she should disturb him. He took a crystal goblet containing wine-and-water for moistening his lips, wrote these words upon it with a diamond, and presented it to her.]

Fill me with the rosy-wine, Call a toast--a toast divine; Give the Poet's darling flame, Lovely Jessy be the name; Then thou mayest freely boast, Thou hast given a peerless toast.

LXX.

ON MISS JESSY LEWARS.

[The constancy of her attendance on the poet's sick-bed and anxiety of mind brought a slight illness upon Jessy Lewars. "You must not die yet," said the poet: "give me that goblet, and I shall prepare you for the worst." He traced these lines with his diamond, and said, "That will be a companion to 'The Toast.'"]

Say, sages, what's the charm on earth Can turn Death's dart aside?

It is not purity and worth, Else Jessy had not died.

R. B.

LXXI.

ON THE

RECOVERY OF JESSY LEWARS.

[A little repose brought health to the young lady. "I knew you would not die," observed the poet, with a smile: "there is a poetic reason for your recovery;" he wrote, and with a feeble hand, the following lines.]

But rarely seen since Nature's birth, The natives of the sky; Yet still one seraph's left on earth, For Jessy did not die.

R. B.

LXXII.

TAM, THE CHAPMAN.

[Tam, the chapman, is said by the late William Cobbett, who knew him, to have been a Thomas Kennedy, a native of Ayrs.h.i.+re, agent to a mercantile house in the west of Scotland. Sir Harris Nicolas confounds him with the Kennedy to whom Burns addressed several letters and verses, which I printed in my edition of the poet in 1834: it is perhaps enough to say that the name of the one was Thomas and the name of the other John.]

As Tam the Chapman on a day, Wi' Death forgather'd by the way, Weel pleas'd he greets a wight so famous, And Death was nae less pleas'd wi' Thomas, Wha cheerfully lays down the pack, And there blaws up a hearty crack; His social, friendly, honest heart, Sae tickled Death they could na part: Sac after viewing knives and garters, Death takes him hame to gie him quarters.

LXXIII.

[These lines seem to owe their origin to the precept of Mickle.

"The present moment is our ain, The next we never saw."]

Here's a bottle and an honest friend!

What wad you wish for mair, man?

Wha kens before his life may end, What his share may be o' care, man?

Then catch the moments as they fly, And use them as ye ought, man?

Believe me, happiness is shy, And comes not ay when sought, man.