BURNS ON AYRSHIRE STREAMS 99 



find him appealing to them for sympathy in his 



c Ye hazelly shaws and briery dens, 

 Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens 



Wi' toddlin' din, 

 Or foaming, strang, wi' hasty stens, 



Frae linn to linn.' 1 



The same appeal forms the burden of his song on the 

 Banks and braes o y bonnie Doon. He leads us where 



'In gowany glens the burnie strays, 

 Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes, 

 Wi' hawthorns gray.' 2 



He pictures the stream after a rain-storm, when 



' Tumbling brown, the burn comes down 

 And roars frae bank to brae ; ' 3 



or when the breath of the Atlantic has swept over 

 the wintry hills and the 



' Burns wi' snawy wreeths up-choked 



Wild-eddying swirl, 

 Or through the mining outlet bocked 

 Down-headlong hurl.' 4 



But nowhere does his delight in these features of 

 his native landscape find more exuberant expression 

 than in his Halloween, when he interrupts his narra- 

 tive of Leezie's misadventure to give a graphic picture 

 of one of his brooks in the calm moonlight of an 

 autumn evening. 



'Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, 



As thro' the glen it wimpl't ; 

 Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays 

 Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't ; 



1 Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson, 2 Poem on Pastoral Poetry. 



3 Winter, a Dirge. 4 A Winter Night. 



