His Poem on Retirement. 149 



" Where the free birds' chorus in gladness swells, 

 Where wild flowers carpet the hills and the dells ; 

 Where nothing's less sweet than the burnie's note 

 That wimples away past my cheerie cote." 



He did not in the end fix his " cheerie cote " by the 

 side of a wimpling brook, but in a place that suited 

 his pursuits much better, within a stone's throw of 

 the sand and rocks that fringe a sheltered sea. 



