Nature’s Law: A Poem

9Great Nature spoke, with air benign,

10 “Go on, ye human race;

11This lower world I you resign;

12 Be fruitful and increase.

13The liquid fire of strong desire

14 I’ve pour’d it in each bosom;

15Here, on this had, does Mankind stand,

16 And there is Beauty’s blossom.”

17The Hero of these artless strains,

18 A lowly bard was he,

19Who sung his rhymes in Coila’s plains,

20 With meikle mirth an’glee;

21Kind Nature’s care had given his share

22 Large, of the flaming current;

23And, all devout, he never sought

24 To stem the sacred torrent.

25He felt the powerful, high behest

26 Thrill, vital, thro’ and thro’;

27And sought a correspondent breast,

28 To give obedience due:

29Propitious Powers screen’d the young flow’rs,

30 From mildews of abortion;

31And low! the bard—a great reward—

32 Has got a double portion!

33Auld cantie Coil may count the day,

34 As annual it returns,

35The third of Libra’s equal sway,

36 That gave another Burns,

37With future rhymes, an’ other times,

38 To emulate his sire:

39To sing auld Coil in nobler style

40 With more poetic fire.

41Ye Powers of peace, and peaceful song,

42 Look down with gracious eyes;

43And bless auld Coila, large and long,

44 With multiplying joys;

45Lang may she stand to prop the land,

46 The flow’r of ancient nations;

47And Burnses spring, her fame to sing,

48 To endless generations!