To Miss Ferrier, enclosing 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!