VII.

ON A WAG IN MAUCHLINE.

[This laborious and useful wag was the "Dear Smith, thou sleest pawkie thief," of one of the poet's finest epistles: he died in the West Indies.]

Lament him, Mauchline husbands a', He aften did assist ye; For had ye staid whole weeks awa, Your wives they ne'er had missed ye. Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye press To school in bands thegither, O tread ye lightly on his grass,-- Perhaps he was your father.

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