The Complete Works. Robert Burns
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Название: The Complete Works

Автор: Robert Burns

Издательство: Public Domain

Жанр: Зарубежная классика

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СКАЧАТЬ all their wealth

      As empty idle care.

      The flow’rs shall vie in all their charms

      The hour of heav’n to grace,

      And birks extend their fragrant arms

      To screen the dear embrace.

      IX.

      Here haply too, at vernal dawn,

      Some musing bard may stray,

      And eye the smoking, dewy lawn,

      And misty mountain gray;

      Or, by the reaper’s nightly beam,

      Mild-chequering thro’ the trees,

      Rave to my darkly-dashing stream,

      Hoarse-swelling on the breeze.

      X.

      Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,

      My lowly banks o’erspread,

      And view, deep-bending in the pool,

      Their shadows’ wat’ry bed!

      Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest

      My craggy cliffs adorn;

      And, for the little songster’s nest,

      The close embow’ring thorn.

      XI.

      So may old Scotia’s darling hope,

      Your little angel band,

      Spring, like their fathers, up to prop

      Their honour’d native land!

      So may thro’ Albion’s farthest ken,

      To social-flowing glasses,

      The grace be—“Athole’s honest men,

      And Athole’s bonnie lasses?”

      LXXXV. ON SCARING SOME WATER-FOWL IN LOCH-TURIT

      [When Burns wrote these touching lines, he was staying with Sir William Murray, of Ochtertyre, during one of his Highland tours. Loch-Turit is a wild lake among the recesses of the hills, and was welcome from its loneliness to the heart of the poet.]

      Why, ye tenants of the lake,

      For me your wat’ry haunt forsake?

      Tell me, fellow-creatures, why

      At my presence thus you fly?

      Why disturb your social joys,

      Parent, filial, kindred ties?—

      Common friend to you and me,

      Nature’s gifts to all are free:

      Peaceful keep your dimpling wave,

      Busy feed, or wanton lave:

      Or, beneath the sheltering rock,

      Bide the surging billow’s shock.

      Conscious, blushing for our race,

      Soon, too soon, your fears I trace.

      Man, your proud usurping foe,

      Would be lord of all below:

      Plumes himself in Freedom’s pride,

      Tyrant stern to all beside.

      The eagle, from the cliffy brow,

      Marking you his prey below,

      In his breast no pity dwells,

      Strong necessity compels:

      But man, to whom alone is giv’n

      A ray direct from pitying heav’n,

      Glories in his heart humane—

      And creatures for his pleasure slain.

      In these savage, liquid plains,

      Only known to wand’ring swains,

      Where the mossy riv’let strays,

      Far from human haunts and ways;

      All on Nature you depend,

      And life’s poor season peaceful spend.

      Or, if man’s superior might

      Dare invade your native right,

      On the lofty ether borne,

      Man with all his pow’rs you scorn;

      Swiftly seek, on clanging wings,

      Other lakes and other springs;

      And the foe you cannot brave,

      Scorn at least to be his slave.

      LXXXVI. WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL, OVER THE CHIMNEY-PIECE, IN THE PARLOUR OF THE INN AT KENMORE, TAYMOUTH.

      [The castle of Taymouth is the residence of the Earl of Breadalbane: it is a magnificent structure, contains many fine paintings: has some splendid old trees and romantic scenery.]

      Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,

      These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;

      O’er many a winding dale and painful steep,

      Th’ abodes of covey’d grouse and timid sheep,

      My savage journey, curious I pursue,

      ’Till fam’d Breadalbane opens to my view.—

      The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,

      The woods, wild scatter’d, clothe their ample sides;

      Th’ outstretching lake, embosom’d ‘mong the hills,

      The eye with wonder and amazement fills;

      The Tay, meand’ring sweet in infant pride,

      The palace, rising on its verdant side;

      The lawns, wood-fring’d in Nature’s native taste;

      The hillocks, dropt in Nature’s careless haste;

      The arches, striding o’er the new-born stream;

      The village, glittering in the noontide beam—

      Poetic ardours in my bosom swell,

      Lone wand’ring by the hermit’s mossy cell:

      The sweeping theatre of hanging woods;

      Th’ incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods—

      Here Poesy might wake her heav’n-taught lyre,

      And look through Nature with creative fire;

      Here, to the wrongs of fate half reconcil’d,

      Misfortune’s lighten’d steps might wander wild;

      And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds,

      Find balm to soothe her bitter—rankling wounds:

      Here heart-struck Grief might heav’nward stretch her scan,

      And injur’d Worth forget and pardon man.

      LXXXVII. WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL, STANDING BY THE FALL OF FYERS, NEAR LOCH-NESS

      [This is one of the many fine scenes, in the Celtic Parnassus of Ossian: but when Burns saw it, the Highland passion of the stream was abated, for there had been no rain for some time to swell and send it pouring down its precipices in a way worthy of the scene. The descent of the water is about two hundred feet. There is another fall further up the stream, very wild and savage, on which the Fyers makes three prodigious leaps into a deep gulf where nothing can be seen for the whirling foam and agitated mist.]

      Among the heathy hills and ragged woods

      The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods;

      Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds,

      Where, thro’ a shapeless breach, his stream resounds,

      As СКАЧАТЬ