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Or whare the Greenock winds his moorland course,
Or haunted Garpel[1] draws his feeble source,
Arous'd by blust'ring winds, and spotting thowes,
In many a torrent down the snaw-broo rowes;
While crashing ice, borne on the roaring speat,
Sweep dams, and mills, an' brigs, a' to the gate:
And from Glenbuck[2] down to the Ratton-Key[3],
Auld Ayr is just one lengthen'd tumbling sea:
Then down ye hurl,—deil nor ye never rise;
And dash the jumblie jaups up to the pouring skies:
A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost,
That Architecture's noble art is lost.

NEW BRIG.
Fine Architecture, trowth, I needs must say o't!
The D—l bethankit that we've tint the gate oʻt:
Gaunt, ghastily, ghaist-alluring edifices,
Hanging, with threat'ning, just like precipieces,
O'er-arching mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves,
'Supporting roof's fantastic, stony groves:
Windows and floors in nameless sculptures drest;
With order, symmetry, or taste unblest;
Forms, like some bedlam-statuary dream,
The craz'd creations of misguided whim:
Forms might be worship'd on the bended knee,
And still the second dread command be free,
Their likeness is not found in earth, or air, or sea;

  1. The banks of Garpel-Water is one of the few places in the Wst of Scotland, where those fancy-scarings, known by the name of Ghaists, still continue pertinaciously to inhabit.
  2. The source of the river of Ayr.
  3. A small landing place above the large quay.