XLII.

DESPONDENCY.

AN ODE.

["I think," said Burns, "it is one of the greatest pleasures attending a poetic genius, that we can give our woes, cares, joys, and loves an embodied form in verse, which to me is ever immediate ease." He elsewhere says, "My passions raged like so many devils till they got vent in rhyme." That eminent painter, Fuseli, on seeing his wife in a passion, said composedly, "Swear my love, swear heartily: you know not how much it will ease you!" This poem was printed in the Kilmarnock edition, and gives a true picture of those bitter moments experienced by the bard, when love and fortune alike deceived him.]