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Till chance, at last, convey'd me to a town:There, wi' a trembling hand, I wrote my KateA sad account of a' my luckless fate;But bade her ay be kind, and no despair,Since life was left, I soon wad gather mair;Wi' whilk, I hop'd, within a towmond's dateTo be at hame, and share it a' wi' Kate.
Fool that I was! how little did I thinkThat love wad soon be lost for fa't o' clink!The loss of fair won wealth, tho' hard to bear,Afore this—ne'er had pow'r to force a tear.I trusted time wad bring things round again,And Kate, dear Kate! wad then be a mine ain:Consol'd my mind in hopes o' better luck,But, O! what sad reverse! how thunderstruck!Whan ae black day brought word frae Rab my brither,That Kate was cried, and married on anither.
Tho' a' my friends, and ilka comrade sweet,At ance, had drapped cauld dead at my feet;Or, tho' I'd heard the last day's dreadfu' ca',Nae deeper horror o'er my heart cou'd fa';I curs'd mysel', I curs'd my luckless fate,And grat—and sabbing cried—O Kate! O Kate!
Frae that day forth—I never mair did weel,But drank and ran headforemost to the deel!My siller vanish'd, far frae hame I pin'd;But Kate for ever ran across my mind:In her were a' my hopes—these hopes were vain,And now,—I'll never see her like again.
'Twas this, Sir, President, that gart me start,Wi' meikle grief and sorrow at my heart,To gie my vote, frae sad experience, here,That disappointed love is war to bear,Ten thousand times, than loss of warld's gear.
