From the Cotter’s Saturday Night

916 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

Its heavenly flight beyond this little sphere, Even to its source — to thee — its Author there.

thoughts ineffable! visions blest! Though worthless our conceptions all of thee, Yet shall thy shadowed image fill our breast, And waft its homage to thy Deity. God! thus alone my lowly thoughts can soar, — Thus seek thy presence Being wise and good! Midst thy vast works admire, obey, adore; And when the tongue is eloquent no more, The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude.

FROM THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT I BY ROBERT BURNS.

[Robert Burns, the well-known Scottish poet, was born in a cottage about two miles south of Ayre, on the 25th of January, 1759, and died at Dumphries, Scotland, in 1796.]

And "Let us worship God," he says, with solem air.

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The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How he, who bore in heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay his head; How his first followers and servants sped;

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PRELIMINARY PROGRAM SELECTIONS. 917

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land: How he, who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand; And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays: Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing," That thus they all may meet in future days: There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, In all the pomp of method, and of art, When men display to congregations wide Devotion's every grace, except the heart! The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; But haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul; And in his book of life the inmates poor enroll.

Then homeward all take off their several way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest; The parent pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, That he, who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, For them, and for their little one's provide; But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her loved at home, revered abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings; "An honest man's the noblest work of God:" And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind;