Sketch For An Elegy

Craigdarroch, fam'd for speaking art
And every virtue of the heart,
Stops short, nor can a word impart
To end his sentence,
When mem'ry strikes him like a dart
With auld acquaintance.

Black James - whase wit was never laith,
But, like a sword had tint the sheath,
Ay ready for the work o' death -
He turns aside,
And strains wi' suffocating breath
His grief to hide.

Even Philosophic Smellie tries
To choak the stream that floods his eyes:
So Moses wi' a hazel-rice
Came o'er the stane;
But, tho' it cost him speaking twice,
It gush'd amain.

Go to your marble graffs, ye great,
In a' the tinkler-trash of state!
But by thy honest turf I'll wait,
Thou man of worth,
And weep the ae best fallow's fate
E'er lay in earth!