To Miss Ferrier
Enclosing the Elegy on Sir J. H. Blair.
Nae heathen name shall I prefix,
Frae Pindus or Parnassus;
Auld Reekie dings them a’ to sticks,
For rhyme-inspiring lasses.
Jove’s tunefu’ dochters three times three
Made Homer deep their debtor;
But, gien the body half an e’e,
Nine Ferriers wad done better!
Last day my mind was in a bog,
Down George’s Street I stoited;
A creeping cauld prosaic fog
My very sense doited.
Do what I dought to set her free,
My saul lay in the mire;
Ye turned a neuk—I saw your e’e—
She took the wing like fire!
The mournfu’ sang I here enclose,
In gratitude I send you,
And pray, in rhyme as weel as prose,
A’ gude things may attend you!