Wae ‘s me, that vice had proven the source of blood an’ war,
    An’ sawn amang the nations the seeds of feud an’ jar: 
    But it was cruel Cain, an’ his grim posterity,
    First began the bloody wark in their ain countrie.

    An’ oh! what widows weep, an’ helpless orphans cry! 
    On a far foreign shore now, the dear, dear ashes lie,
    Whose life-blood stain’d the gowans of some far foreign lea,
    Far frae their kith an’ kin, an’ their ain countrie.

    Hail the day, speed the day, then, when a’ the wars are done! 
    An’ may ilk British laddie return wi’ laurels won;
    On my dear Willie’s brows may they flourish bonnily,
    An’ be wi’ the myrtle twined in his ain countrie.

    But I hope the time is near, when sweet peace her olive wand
    To lay the fiend of war shall soon stretch o’er every land,
    When swords turn’d into ploughshares and pruning-hooks shall be,
    An’ the nations a’ live happy in their ain countrie.

THE FIDDLER’S WIDOW.

    There was a musician wha play’d a good stick,
      He had a sweet wife an’ a fiddle,
    An’ in his profession he had right good luck
      At bridals his elbow to diddle.

    But ah! the poor fiddler soon chanced to die,
      As a’ men to dust must return;
    An’ the poor widow cried, wi’ the tear in her e’e,
      That as lang as she lived she wad mourn.

    Alane by the hearth she disconsolate sat,
      Lamenting the day that she saw,
    An’ aye as she look’d on the fiddle she grat,
      That silent now hang on the wa’.

    Fair shane the red rose on the young widow’s cheek,
      Sae newly weel washen wi’ tears,
    As in came a younker some comfort to speak,
      Wha whisper’d fond love in her ears.

    “Dear lassie,” he cried, “I am smit wi’ your charms,
      Consent but to marry me now,
    I ’m as good as ever laid hair upon thairms,
      An’ I ‘ll cheer baith the fiddle an’ you.”

    The young widow blush’d, but sweet smiling she said,
      “Dear sir, to dissemble I hate,
    If we twa thegither are doom’d to be wed,
      Folks needna contend against fate.”

    He took down the fiddle as dowie it hung,
      An’ put a’ the thairms in tune,
    The young widow dighted her cheeks an’ she sung,
      For her heart lap her sorrows aboon.

    Now sound sleep the dead in his cauld bed o’ clay,
      For death still the dearest maun sever;
    For now he ‘s forgot, an’ his widow’s fu’ gay,
      An’ his fiddle ’s as merry as ever.

LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF AN IRISH CHIEF.

    He ’s no more on the green hill, he has left the wide forest,
    Whom, sad by the lone rill, thou, loved dame, deplorest: 
    We saw in his dim eye the beam of life quiver,
    Its bright orb to light again no more for ever.