tributed no small part. "Alas!" he writes, "who would wish for many years? What is it but to drag existence until our joys gradually expire, and leave us in a night of misery, like the gloom which blots out the stars, one by one from the face of heaven, and leaves us without a ray of comfort in the howling waste?"

He continued to find at intervals solace in poetry. One morning he heard the report of a gun and shortly after saw a poor wounded hare limping by. The condition of the little animal touched his heart and called forth the excellent poem "On Seeing a Wounded Hare Limp by Me," written in classic English:

"Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field,

The bitter little that of life remains :

No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield."

We meet with this tender sympathy with nature, and strong sense of fellowship with lower creatures, in many It is one secret of their charm. In the

of his poems.

poem "To a Mouse" is the following:

"I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor earth-born companion

An' fellow-mortal!"

The cold blasts of a winter night remind him of —

"Ilk happing bird, wee helpless thing,
That in the merry months o' spring
Delighted me to hear thee sing,

What comes o' thee?

Where wilt thou cower thy chittering wing,
And close thy e'e?"

The choicest products of this sojourn at Ellisland are the immortal "Tale o' Tam o' Shanter" and "To Mary in Heaven." The latter is a song of deep pathos. Years before he had loved his " "Highland Mary" with a deep devotion. Their parting by the banks of Ayr - which the untimely death of Mary made the last-was attended with vows of eternal constancy. Her memory never vanished from the poet's mind. On the anniversary of her death, in October, 1786, he grew sad and wandered about his farmyard the whole night in deep agitation of mind. As dawn approached he was persuaded by his wife to enter the house, when he sat down and wrote those pathetic lines, beginning:

"Thou lingering star with lessening ray,

That lov'st to greet the early morn,

Again thou usherest in the day

My Mary from my soul was torn.

O Mary, dear departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest ?

See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?"

In 1791 Burns removed to Dumfries and gave his whole time to the duties of the Excise, for which he received seventy pounds a year. At Ellisland he had

written :

"To make a happy fireside clime,

For weans and wife,

Is the true pathos and sublime

Of human life."

Unfortunately he did not live as wisely as he sang. His spirit became soured toward those more favored by fortune. His nights were frequently spent at the tavern with drinking cronies. His life is summed up in one of his letters: "Hurry of business, grinding the faces of the publican and the sinner on the merciless wheels of the Excise, making ballads, and then drinking and singing them; and, over and above all, correcting the press of two different publications."

In 1792 his aid was solicited in the preparation of "Melodies of Scotland." He entered into the undertaking with enthusiasm. When the editor, George Thompson of Edinburgh, once sent him some money in return for a number of songs, the poet wrote: "I assure you, my dear sir, that you truly hurt me with your pecuniary parcel. It degrades me in my own eyes. However, to return it would savor of affectation; but, as to any more traffic of that debtor and creditor kind, I swear by that honor which crowns the upright stature of Robert Burns's integrity, on the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the by-pact transaction and from that moment commence entire stranger with you." In view of the financial straits into which he shortly afterward came, this must be regarded as an unwise sacrifice of prudence to sentiment.

Burns strongly sympathized with the revolutionary movement in France; and to this feeling no less than to his Scottish patriotism, if we may believe his own account, we owe the thrilling lines of "Bruce's Address," which Carlyle says "should be sung with the throat of the whirlwind." The excellence of this poem has been questioned by Wordsworth and others; but let the following lines be