34 Maria Riddell, the Friend of Burns. 



Maria replied with the following verses, about the authorship 

 of which there was at one time some doubt : — ^"^ 



" Stay, my Willie — yet believe me; 

 Stay, my Willie — yet believe me ; 

 For Ah ! thou know'st na' every pang. 

 Wad wring my bosom should'st tlioii leave me. 



Tell me that thou yet art true, 

 And a' my wrangs shall be forgiven ; 

 And when this heart proves fause to you 

 Yon sun shall cease its course in heaven. 



But to think I was betrayed, 



That falsehood e'en our lives should sunder ! 



To take the flow' ret to my breast, 



And find the guilefu' serpent under. 



Could I hoi)e thoud'st ne'er deceive. 

 Celestial pleasures, might I choose 'em 

 I'd slight, nor seek in other spheres, 

 That heaven I'd find within thj^ bosom. 



Stay, my Willie — yet believe me ; 



Stay, my Willie — yet believe me ; 



For Ah ! thou know'st na' every pang, 



Wad wring my bosom should'st thou leave me! "48 



One would have thought that after this exchange of pretty 

 poetry a reconciliation could not have been far distant, but 

 early in 1795 Burns wrote his lampoon " From Esopus^^ to 

 Maria," an effort which has been described as an "inept and 

 unmanly parody of Pope's Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard,"^^ 

 wherein Burns describes her as : — 



" pert, affected, vain coquette, 



A wit in folly, and a fool in wit ! 



47 Henley and Henderson, The Poetry of Eohert Burns, vol. iii. 

 (1901), p. 463. 



48 P. Hately Waddell. Life and Worls of Eohert Burns (1867), 

 p. 293. 



49 James Williamson, actor and manager of the Dumfries 

 Theatre. 



50 Henley and Henderson, The Poetry of Burns (1901;, vol. ii., 

 p. 353. 



