I'm fool'd, I am dover'd as dead as a herring—
Good sir, you're a man of compassion, I know;
Come, bleed me to death, then, unflinching, unerring,
Or grant me some poison, dear Doctor Monroe!"
The Doctor he flang aff his big-coat an' beaver,
He took out his lance, an' he sharpen'd it so;
No judge ever look'd more decided or graver—
"I've oft done the same, sir," says Doctor Monroe,
"For gamblers, rogues, jockeys, and desperate lovers,
But I always make charge of a hundred, or so."
The patient look'd pale, and cried out in shrill quavers,
"The devil! do you say so, sir, Doctor Monroe?"
"O yes, sir, I'm sorry there's nothing more common;
I like it—it pays—but, ere that length I go,
A man that goes mad for the love of a woman
I sometimes can cure with a lecture, or so."
"Why, thank you, sir; there spoke the man and the friend too,
Death is the last reckoner with friend or with foe,
The lecture then, first, if you please, I'll attend to;
The other, of course, you know, Doctor Monroe."
The lecture is said—How severe, keen, an' cutting,
Of love an' of wedlock, each loss an' each woe,
The patient got up—o'er the floor he went strutting,
Smil'd, caper'd, an' shook hands with Doctor Monroe.
He dresses, an' flaunts it with Bell, Sue, an' Chirsty,
But freedom an' fun chooses not to forego;
He still lives a bachelor, drinks when he's thirsty,
An' sings like a lark, an' loves Doctor Monroe!
The Stuarts of Appin.
[James Hogg.—Music by Peter M'Leod.]
I sing of a land that was famous of yore,
The land of green Appin, the ward of the flood,
Where every grey cairn that broods o'er the shore,
Marks grave of the royal, the valiant, or good.
The land where the strains of grey Ossian were framed,—
The land of fair Selma, and reign of Fingal,—
And late of a race, that with tears must be named,
The noble Clan Stuart, the bravest of all.
Oh-hon, an righ! and the Stuarts of Appin!
The gallant, devoted, old Stuarts of Appin!
Their glory is o'er, for the clan is no more,
And the Sassenach sings on the hills of green Appin.
