[5] These lines were addressed by Mrs Hunter to her daughter, on the occasion of her marriage.

THE LOT OF THOUSANDS.

    When hope lies dead within the heart,
      By secret sorrow close conceal’d,
    We shrink lest looks or words impart
      What must not be reveal’d.

    ’Tis hard to smile when one would weep,
      To speak when one would silent be;
    To wake when one should wish to sleep,
      And wake to agony.

    Yet such the lot by thousands cast,
      Who wander in this world of care,
    And bend beneath the bitter blast,
      To save them from despair.

    But Nature waits her guests to greet,
      Where disappointments cannot come,
    And Time guides, with unerring feet,
      The weary wanderers home.

ALEXANDER, DUKE OF GORDON.

Alexander, the fourth Duke of Gordon, was born in the year 1743, and died on the 17th of January 1827, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.  Chiefly remembered as a kind patron of the poet Burns, his name is likewise entitled to a place in the national minstrelsy as the author of an excellent version of the often-parodied song, “Cauld Kail in Aberdeen.”  Of this song, the first words, written to an older tune, appeared in the second volume of Herd’s “Collection,” in 1776.  These begin—­

    “Cauld kail in Aberdeen,
      And castocks in Strabogie;
    But yet I fear they ’ll cook o’er soon,
      And never warm the cogie.”

The song is anonymous, as is the version, first published in Dale’s “Scottish Songs,” beginning—­

    “There ’s cauld kail in Aberdeen,
      And castocks in Strabogie,
    Where ilka lad maun hae his lass,
      But I maun hae my cogie.”

A third version, distinct from that inserted in the text, was composed by William Reid, a bookseller in Glasgow, who died in 1831.  His song is scarcely known.  The Duke’s song, with which Burns expressed himself as being “charmed,” was first published in the second volume of Johnson’s “Musical Museum.”  It is not only gay and animating, but has the merit of being free of blemishes in want of refinement, which affect the others.  The “Bogie” celebrated in the song, it may be remarked, is a river in Aberdeenshire, which, rising in the parish of Auchindoir, discharges its waters into the Deveron, a little distance below the town of Huntly.  It gives its name to the extensive and rich valley of Strathbogie, through which it proceeds.

CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN.

    There ’s cauld kail in Aberdeen,
      And castocks in Strabogie;
    Gin I hae but a bonnie lass,
      Ye ’re welcome to your cogie. 
    And ye may sit up a’ the night,
    And drink till it be braid daylight;
    Gi’e me a lass baith clean and tight,
      To dance the reel o’ Bogie.