To Miss Jessy Lewars, Dumfries. With Johnson's 'musical Museum.'

Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair,
And with them take the Poet's prayer;
That fate may in her fairest page,
With every kindliest, best presage
Of future bliss, enrol thy name:
With native worth and spotless fame,
And wakeful caution still aware
Of ill, but chief, man's felon snare;
All blameless joys on earth we find,
And all the treasures of the mind,
These be thy guardian and reward;
So prays thy faithful friend, The Bard.

June 26, 1796.