The Complete Works. Robert Burns

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      And is she ever, ever lost?

      V.

      Oh! can she bear so base a heart,

      So lost to honour, lost to truth,

      As from the fondest lover part,

      The plighted husband of her youth!

      Alas! life’s path may be unsmooth!

      Her way may lie thro’ rough distress!

      Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe,

      Her sorrows share, and make them less?

      VI.

      Ye winged hours that o’er us past,

      Enraptur’d more, the more enjoy’d,

      Your dear remembrance in my breast,

      My fondly-treasur’d thoughts employ’d,

      That breast, how dreary now, and void,

      For her too scanty once of room!

      Ev’n ev’ry ray of hope destroy’d,

      And not a wish to gild the gloom!

      VII.

      The morn that warns th’ approaching day,

      Awakes me up to toil and woe:

      I see the hours in long array,

      That I must suffer, lingering slow.

      Full many a pang, and many a throe,

      Keen recollection’s direful train,

      Must wring my soul, ere Phœbus, low,

      Shall kiss the distant, western main.

      VIII.

      And when my nightly couch I try,

      Sore-harass’d out with care and grief,

      My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye,

      Keep watchings with the nightly thief:

      Or if I slumber, fancy, chief,

      Reigns haggard-wild, in sore affright:

      Ev’n day, all-bitter, brings relief,

      From such a horror-breathing night.

      IX.

      O! thou bright queen, who o’er th’ expanse

      Now highest reign’st, with boundless sway!

      Oft has thy silent-marking glance

      Observ’d us, fondly-wand’ring, stray!

      The time, unheeded, sped away,

      While love’s luxurious pulse beat high,

      Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray,

      To mark the mutual kindling eye.

      X.

      Oh! scenes in strong remembrance set!

      Scenes never, never to return!

      Scenes, if in stupor I forget,

      Again I feel, again I burn!

      From ev’ry joy and pleasure torn,

      Life’s weary vale I’ll wander thro’;

      And hopeless, comfortless, I’ll mourn

      XLII. DESPONDENCY. AN ODE

      [“I think,” said Burns, “it is one of the greatest pleasures attending a poetic genius, that we can give our woes, cares, joys, and loves an embodied form in verse, which to me is ever immediate ease.” He elsewhere says, “My passions raged like so many devils till they got vent in rhyme.” That eminent painter, Fuseli, on seeing his wife in a passion, said composedly, “Swear my love, swear heartily: you know not how much it will ease you!” This poem was printed in the Kilmarnock edition, and gives a true picture of those bitter moments experienced by the bard, when love and fortune alike deceived him.]