 | Poems And Songs |  |
Cursed thought! wha wi' a spunk o' soul
That thought could for a moment thole?
It dams the flood o' inspiration,
And dooms the Bard to mis-creation.
Sweet Fancy's wings by it are clippit,
Benevolence in the bud is nippit.
Damned thought! Oh! why should bards imbibe it?
Or why should I, a bard, describe it?
Queer chaps, O Ritchie, are thae bards!
And in the human pack o' cards
Wha can their proper place assign them?
Shall we wi' Kings and Queens combine them?
Or, wi' sour look and gesture grave,
Gie them a station near the Knave?
Some for themselves can justly claim,
Than kings or queens, a higher name:
To their transcendent genius thrones
Were things too mean for stepping-stones;
While all the rulers of mankind
They measured only by the mind.
Supreme amid creation's plan
They deemed the dignity o' man—
Of man, not in his robe of ermine
(That aften twice has happit vermin),
But man in ought that toil could gain—
In ought that he could ca' his ain.
That thought could for a moment thole?
It dams the flood o' inspiration,
And dooms the Bard to mis-creation.
Sweet Fancy's wings by it are clippit,
Benevolence in the bud is nippit.
Damned thought! Oh! why should bards imbibe it?
Or why should I, a bard, describe it?
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And in the human pack o' cards
Wha can their proper place assign them?
Shall we wi' Kings and Queens combine them?
Or, wi' sour look and gesture grave,
Gie them a station near the Knave?
Some for themselves can justly claim,
Than kings or queens, a higher name:
To their transcendent genius thrones
Were things too mean for stepping-stones;
While all the rulers of mankind
They measured only by the mind.
Supreme amid creation's plan
They deemed the dignity o' man—
Of man, not in his robe of ermine
(That aften twice has happit vermin),
But man in ought that toil could gain—
In ought that he could ca' his ain.
| Poems And Songs | |