Classic Poem

WHO, ON A REPORT OF HIS DEATH, MADE AND PUBLISHED SEVERAL ELEGIES, &C .

Sighing shepherds of Hibernia,
Thank ye for your kind concern a',
When a fause report beguiling,
Prov'd a draw-back on your smiling:
Dight your een, and cease your grieving,
Allan's hale, and well, and living,
Singing, laughing, sleeping soundly,
Cowing beef, and drinking roundly;
Drinking roundly rum and claret,
Ale and usquae, bumpers fair out,
Supernaculum but spilling,
The least diamond drawing, filling;
Sowsing sonnets on the lasses,
Hounding satires at the asses,
Smiling at the surly critics,
And the pack-horse of politics;
Painting meadows, shaws, and mountains,
Crooking burns, and flowing fountains;
Flowing fountains, where ilk gowan
Grows about the borders glowan,
Swelling sweetly, and inviting
Poets' lays, and lovers meeting;
Meeting kind to niffer kisses,
Bargaining for better blisses.

Hills in dreary dumps now lying,
And ye zephyrs swiftly flying,
And ye rivers gently turning,
And ye Philomelas mourning,
And ye double sighing echoes,
Cease your sobbing, tears, and hey-ho's!
Banish a' your care and grieving,
Allan 's hale, and well, and living;
Early up on mornings shining,
Ilka fancy warm refining;
Giving ilka verse a burnish,
That man second volume furnish,
To bring in frae lord and lady
Meikle fame, and part of ready;
Splendid thing of constant motion,
Fish'd for in the southern ocean;
Prop of gentry, nerve of battles,
Prize for which the gamester rattles;
Belzie's banes, deceitfu', kittle,
Risking a' to gain a little.

Pleasing Philip's tunefu' tickle,
Philomel, and kind Arbuckle;
Singers sweet, baith lads and lasses,
Tuning pipes on hill Parnassus,
Allan kindly to you wishes
Lasting life and rowth of blisses;
And that he may, when ye surrender
Sauls to heaven, in numbers tender
Give a' your fames a happy heezy,
And gratefully immortalize ye.