Slow Signal Fade ebooks

And now thou hast restored our State,
Pity our Kirk also;
For she by tribulations
Is now brought very low.
Consume that high-place, Patronage,
From off thy holy hill;
And in thy fury burn the book--
Even of that man M'Gill.^1
Now hear our prayer, accept our song,
And fight thy chosen's battle:
We seek but little, Lord, from thee,
Thou kens we get as little.
[Footnote 1: Dr. William M'Gill of Ayr, whose "Practical
Essay on the Death of Jesus Christ" led to a charge of
heresy against him. Burns took up his cause in "The Kirk of
Scotland's Alarm" (p. 351).--Lang.]


Sketch In Verse
Inscribed to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox.
How wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite,
How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white,
How Genius, th' illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,
I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I--let the Critics go whistle!
But now for a Patron whose name and whose glory,
At once may illustrate and honour my story.


Pages:
363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387