[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

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S THE SANG THE SPINDLE.
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An' whiles got ane—an' whiles got nana
An' whiles the twa a' cot.
His parent- tree wi' shielin-bough,
By death was wede awa',
An' left alane, 'mang shaken leaves,
Ae wee bit bud to blaw.
But heaven casts, wi' tenty care,
Love's downy lap about
The orphan lane, wha fiiends has nane,
And maks the lost twa oot.
The helping han', in time o' need.
Gets something aye to gi'e ;
That gow'd that's grasped wi'iniser greed,
Taks wings itsel' to flee.
And whiles the purse that's hespet steeve,
Tines a' its gatherings oot,
An' catching ane—it whiles gets nane—
And seldom twa a' oot.
A moral guid has Auntie's sang
This birring earth's a wheel.
We're spinners a', threads short or lang,
Just as we spin, we reel.
An' up an' down, the thread o' life
Has many a wheel about
Noo—as we spin time's gowden warp.
Life's wab is woven out.
These verses are by Miss Aird of Kilmarnock—a poetess of nature's
own. making. In her dedication of a small volume of poetry, printed
in 184:6, she says of herself: " My classic friends will forgive my presumption,
and cast the salt of Christian charity into whatever in them
is bitter, when they know I have never written a single verse by measure,
nor a sentence by rule—my Bible being my only lexicon." The
poems of Miss Aird display a very surprising degree of perfection, considering
the many drawbacks which the self-taught labour under.
We
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