th his diamond, and said, "That
will be a companion to 'The Toast.'"]

Say, sages, what's the charm on earth
Can turn Death's dart aside?
It is not purity and worth,
Else Jessy had not died.

R. B.

* * * * *

LXXI.

ON THE

RECOVERY OF JESSY LEWARS.

[A little repose brought health to the young lady. "I knew you would
not die," observed the poet, with a smile: "there is a poetic reason
for your recovery;" he wrote, and with a feeble hand, the following
lines.]

But rarely seen since Nature's birth,
The natives of the sky;
Yet still one seraph's left on earth,
For Jessy did not die.

R. B.

* * * * *

LXXII.

TAM, THE CHAPMAN.

[Tam, the chapman, is said by the late William Cobbett, who knew him,
to have been a Thomas Kennedy, a native of Ayrshire, agent to a
mercantile house in the west of Scotland. Sir Harris Nicolas confounds
him with the Kennedy to whom Burns addressed several letters and
verses, which I printed in my edition of the poet in 1834: it is
perhaps enough to say that the name of the one was Thomas and the name
of the other John.]

As Tam the Chapman on a day,
Wi' Death forgather'd by the way,
Weel pleas'd he greets a wight so famous,
And Death was nae less pleas'd wi' Thomas,
Wha cheerfully lays down the pack,
And there blaws up a hearty crack;
His social, friendly, honest heart,
Sae tickled Death they could na part:
Sac after viewing knives and garters,
Death takes him hame to gie him quarters.

* * * * *

LXXIII.

[These lines seem to owe their origin to the precept of Mickle.

"The present moment is our ain,
The next we never saw."]

Here's a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad you wish for mair, man?
Wha kens before his life may end,
What his share may be o' care, man?
Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man?
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not ay when sought, man.

* * * * *

LXXIV.

[The sentiment which these lines express, was one familiar to Burns,
in the early, as well as concluding days of his life.]

Though fickle Fortune has deceived me,
She promis'd fair and perform'd but ill;
Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav'd