Elegy on the Late Miss Burnet of Monboddo

Life ne’er exulted in so rich a prize,As Burnet, lovely from her native skies;Nor envious death so triumph’d in a blow,As that which laid th’ accomplish’d Burnet low.

Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget?In richest ore the brightest jewel set!In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown,As by His noblest work the Godhead best is known.

In vain ye flaunt in summer’s pride, ye groves;Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore,Ye woodland choir that chaunt your idle loves,Ye cease to charm; Eliza is no more.

Ye healthy wastes, immix’d with reedy fens;Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stor’d:Ye rugged cliffs, o’erhanging dreary glens,To you I fly—ye with my soul accord.

Princes, whose cumb’rous pride was all their worth,Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail,And thou, sweet Excellence! forsake our earth,And not a Muse with honest grief bewail?

We saw thee shine in youth and beauty’s pride,And Virtue’s light, that beams beyond the spheres;But, like the sun eclips’d at morning tide,Thou left us darkling in a world of tears.

The parent’s heart that nestled fond in thee,That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care;So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree;So, from it ravish’d, leaves it bleak and bare.

Now Nature hangs her mantle greenOn every blooming tree,And spreads her sheets o’ daisies whiteOut o’er the grassy lea;Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,And glads the azure skies;But nought can glad the weary wightThat fast in durance lies.

Now laverocks wake the merry mornAloft on dewy wing;The merle, in his noontide bow’r,Makes woodland echoes ring;The mavis wild wi’ mony a note,Sings drowsy day to rest:In love and freedom they rejoice,Wi’ care nor thrall opprest.

Now blooms the lily by the bank,The primrose down the brae;The hawthorn’s budding in the glen,And milk-white is the slae:The meanest hind in fair ScotlandMay rove their sweets amang;But I, the Queen of a’ Scotland,Maun lie in prison strang.

I was the Queen o’ bonie France,Where happy I hae been;Fu’ lightly raise I in the morn,As blythe lay down at e’en:And I’m the sov’reign of Scotland,And mony a traitor there;Yet here I lie in foreign bands,And never-ending care.

But as for thee, thou false woman,My sister and my fae,Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a swordThat thro’ thy soul shall gae;The weeping blood in woman’s breastWas never known to thee;Nor th’ balm that draps on wounds of woeFrae woman’s pitying e’e.

My son! my son! may kinder starsUpon thy fortune shine;And may those pleasures gild thy reign,That ne’er wad blink on mine!God keep thee frae thy mother’s faes,Or turn their hearts to thee:And where thou meet’st thy mother’s friend,Remember him for me!

O! soon, to me, may Summer sunsNae mair light up the morn!Nae mair to me the Autumn windsWave o’er the yellow corn?And, in the narrow house of death,Let Winter round me rave;And the next flow’rs that deck the Spring,Bloom on my peaceful grave!