Robert Burns

Elegy on the Late Miss Burnet, of Monboddo

Lies ne’er exulted in so rich a prize
  As Burnet, lovely from her native skies;
Nor envious death so triumph’d in a blow,
  As that which laid th’ accomplish’d Burnet low.

Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget?
  In richest ore the brightest jewel set!
In thee high Heaven above was truest shown,
  And by his noblest work the Godhead best is known.

In vain ye flaunt in summer’s pride, ye groves;
  Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore,
Ye woodland choir that chant your idle loves,
  Ye cease to charm-Eliza is no more!

Ye heathy wastes, inmix’d with reedy fens;
  Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes ator’d;
Ye rugged cliffs o’erhanging dreary glens,
  To you I fly, ye with my soul accord.

Princes, whose cumbrous pride was all their worth,-
  Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail?
And thou, sweet excellence! forsake our earth,
  And not a Muse in honest grief bewail?

We saw thee shine in youth and beauty’s pride,
  And virtue’s light, that beams beyond the spheres;
But like the sun eclips’d at morning tide,
  Thou left’st us darkling in a world of tears.

The parent’s heart that nestled fond in thee,
  That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care;
So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree,
  So from it ravish’d, leaves it bleak and bare.