become happily reconciled.

* * * * *

_Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
And e'en devotion!_

ROBERT BURNS.

XXVIII. THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.[H]

ROBERT BURNS.--1759-1796.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

GRAY.

My lov'd, my honor'd, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end,--
My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise:
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween.

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;[1]
The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes--
This night his weekly moil is at an end,--
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn[2] in ease and rest to spend,
And, weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
The expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher[3] through,
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin[4] noise an' glee.
His wee bit ingle,[5] blinkin bonnily,
His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil.

Belyve,[6] the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, amang the farmers roun';
Some ca'[7] the pleugh, some herd, some tentie[8] rin
A canny[9] errand to a neebor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw[10] new gown,
Or deposite[11] her sair-won[12] penny-fee,[13]
To help her parents dear, if they in ha