Complimentary Versicles to Jessie Lewars

by Robert Burns

THE TOAST

Fill me with the rosy wine,

Call a toast, a toast divine:

Giveth me Poet’s darling flame,

Lovely Jessie be her name;

Then thou mayest freely boast,

Thou hast given a peerless toast.

THE MENAGERIE

Talk not to me of savages,

  From Afric’s burning sun;

No savage e’er could rend my heart,

  As Jessie, thou hast done:

But Jessie’s lovely hand in mine,

  A mutual faith to plight,

Not even to view the heavenly choir,

  Would be so blest a sight.

JESSIE’S ILLNESS

Say, sages, what’s the charm on earth

  Can turn Death’s dart aside!

It is not purity and worth,

  Else Jessie had not died.

ON HER RECOVERY

But rarely seen since Nature’s birth,

  The natives of the sky;

Yet still one seraph’s left on earth,

  For Jessie did not die.