Tragic Fragment
59 lines✦
ll devil as I am—a damned wretch,A hardened, stubborn, unrepenting villain,Still my heart melts at human wretchedness;And with sincere but unavailing sighsI view the helpless children of distress:With tears indignant I behold the oppressorRejoicing in the honest man’s destruction,Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime.—Ev’n you, ye hapless crew! I pity you;Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity;Ye poor, despised, abandoned vagabonds,Whom Vice, as usual, has turn’d o’er to ruin.Oh! but for friends and interposing Heaven,I had been driven forth like you forlorn,The most detested, worthless wretch among you!O injured God! Thy goodness has endow’d meWith talents passing most of my compeers,Which I in just proportion have abused—As far surpassing other common villainsAs Thou in natural parts has given me more. Tarbolton Lasses, The If ye gae up to yon hill-tap,Ye’ll there see bonie Peggy;She kens her father is a laird,And she forsooth’s a leddy. There Sophy tight, a lassie bright,Besides a handsome fortune:Wha canna win her in a night,Has little art in courtin’. Gae down by Faile, and taste the ale,And tak a look o’ Mysie;She’s dour and din, a deil within,But aiblins she may please ye. If she be shy, her sister try,Ye’ll maybe fancy Jenny;If ye’ll dispense wi’ want o’ sense—She kens hersel she’s bonie. As ye gae up by yon hillside,Speir in for bonie Bessy;She’ll gie ye a beck, and bid ye light,And handsomely address ye. There’s few sae bonie, nane sae guid,In a’ King George’ dominion;If ye should doubt the truth o’ this—It’s Bessy’s ain opinion! Ah, Woe Is Me, My Mother Dear Paraphrase of Jeremiah, 15th Chap., 10th verse. Ah, woe is me, my mother dear!A man of strife ye’ve born me:For sair contention I maun bear;They hate, revile, and scorn me. I ne’er could lend on bill or band,That five per cent. might blest me;And borrowing, on the tither hand,The deil a ane wad trust me. Yet I, a coin-denied wight,By Fortune quite discarded;Ye see how I am, day and night,By lad and lass blackguarded!
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