Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet To think how monie counsels sweet, How monie lengthened sage advices, The husband frae the wife despises.

Prudent, cautious self-control is wisdom's root.

In durance vile 1here must I wake and weep, And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An' foolish notion.

Your lines, I maintain it, are poetry, and good poetry.... Friendship... had I been so blest as to have met with you in time, might have led me - God of love only knows where.

Morality, thou deadly bane, Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain! Vain is his hope, whose stay an' trust is In moral mercy, truth, and justice!

Some wee short hour ayont the twal.