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

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WHAT BIKD IN BEAUTY, FLIGHT, OR SONG.
Wif)^t 33trtJ
in MtrntVi, JpUg^t, or ^ong.
What bird in beauty, flight, or song.
Can with the bard compare,
Who sang as sweet, and soar'd as strong
As ever child of air !
His plume, his note, his form could Burns,
For whim or pleasure, change ;
He was not one, but all by turns.
With transmigration strange :—
The blackbird, oracle of spring.
When flow'd his moral lay
The swallow, wheeling on the wing,
Capriciously at play :
The humming bird, fi-om bloom to bloom,
Inhaling heavenly balm
The raven in the tempest's gloom
The halcyon in the calm :—
In " auld kirk Alloway," the owl.
At witching time of night
By " bonnie Doon," the earliest fowl
That carolled to the light.
He was the wren amidst the grove,
Wlien in his homely vein ;
At Bannock-burn, the bird of Jove,
With thunder in his train :
The woodlark, in his mournful hours ;
The goldfinch in his mirth