Yes! there is ane—­a Scottish callan! 
     There’s ane; come forrit, honest Allan! 
     Thou need na jouk behint the hallan,
     A chiel sae clever;
     The teeth o’ time may gnaw Tantallan,
     But thou’s for ever.

     Thou paints auld Nature to the nines,
     In thy sweet Caledonian lines;
     Nae gowden stream thro’ myrtle twines,
     Where Philomel,
     While nightly breezes sweep the vines,
     Her griefs will tell!

     In gowany glens thy burnie strays,
     Where bonie lasses bleach their claes,
     Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,
     Wi’ hawthorns gray,
     Where blackbirds join the shepherd’s lays,
     At close o’ day.

     Thy rural loves are Nature’s sel’;
     Nae bombast spates o’ nonsense swell;
     Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell
     O’ witchin love,
     That charm that can the strongest quell,
     The sternest move.

Verses On The Destruction Of The Woods Near Drumlanrig

     As on the banks o’ wandering Nith,
     Ae smiling simmer morn I stray’d,
     And traced its bonie howes and haughs,
     Where linties sang and lammies play’d,
     I sat me down upon a craig,
     And drank my fill o’ fancy’s dream,
     When from the eddying deep below,
     Up rose the genius of the stream.

     Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow,
     And troubled, like his wintry wave,
     And deep, as sughs the boding wind
     Amang his caves, the sigh he gave—­
     “And come ye here, my son,” he cried,
     “To wander in my birken shade? 
     To muse some favourite Scottish theme,
     Or sing some favourite Scottish maid?

     “There was a time, it’s nae lang syne,
     Ye might hae seen me in my pride,
     When a’ my banks sae bravely saw
     Their woody pictures in my tide;
     When hanging beech and spreading elm
     Shaded my stream sae clear and cool: 
     And stately oaks their twisted arms
     Threw broad and dark across the pool;

     “When, glinting thro’ the trees, appear’d
     The wee white cot aboon the mill,
     And peacefu’ rose its ingle reek,
     That, slowly curling, clamb the hill. 
     But now the cot is bare and cauld,
     Its leafy bield for ever gane,
     And scarce a stinted birk is left
     To shiver in the blast its lane.”

     “Alas!” quoth I, “what ruefu’ chance
     Has twin’d ye o’ your stately trees? 
     Has laid your rocky bosom bare—­
     Has stripped the cleeding o’ your braes? 
     Was it the bitter eastern blast,
     That scatters blight in early spring? 
     Or was’t the wil’fire scorch’d their boughs,
     Or canker-worm wi’ secret sting?”