Your lines, I maintain it, are poetry, and good poetry.... Friendship... had I been so blest as to have met with you in time, might have led me - God of love only knows where.
Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes! My peace with these, my love with those. The bursting tears my heart declare; Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr.
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."
[Scottish songs] are, I own, frequently wild, & unreduceable to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect.
An honest man here lies at rest, the friend of man the friend of truth the friend of age and guide of youth. Few hearts like his with virtue warmed, few heads with knowledge so informed. If there's another world, he lives in bliss. If there is none, he made the best of this.
The great Creator to revere
Must sure become the creature;
But still the preaching cant forbear,
And ev'n the rigid feature:
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range
Be complaisance extended;An atheist laugh's a poor exchange
For deity offended.
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victory! Now 's the day and now 's the hour; See the front o' battle lour.