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Dramas

Translations, and Occasional Poems. By Barbarina Lady Dacre.[i.e. Barbarina Brand] In Two Volumes

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229

IMITATION OF BURNS.

TO THOMAS GRAHAM OF BALGOWAN, NOW LORD LYNEDOCH.
In cauld death lock'd is mute the tongue
That best thy virtues could ha' sung,
On lyre the muse hersel' had strung
To Scottish lays,
Till on the inmost heart had rung
Thy well-earn'd praise.
Yet when the lark his song has closed,
And cozie 'mang the grass is housed,
Wi' head beneath his wing composed,
The houlet shrill
Shrieks, by the dewy night-air roused,
Wi' fearless bill.
So I, by ventrous friendship led,
Though thy own country's bard be dead,

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And, weeping, every muse be fled
Wi' Burns away,
Wad weave a garland for thy head
O' Scottish bay!
Wad fain thy dauntless valour sing,
Resistless as the tempest's wing
That wave on wave does dashing fling
Upo' the shore;
Yet mild thy soul as breath of spring
When war is o'er.
But och! in vain I glowre and spell
Thy social merits a' to tell,
And thou maun aiblins blush thysel'
Sic strains to hear,
For Virtue loves in shade to dwell
Wi' modest fear.
June 17, 1802.