little kens
What troubles it await--
Whan ance the flush o' spring is o'er,
The fause bird lea'es its mate.
The flowers will fade, the woods decay,
And lose their bonnie green;
The sun wi' clouds may be o'ercast,
Before that it be e'en.

Ilk thing is in its season sweet;
So love is in its noon:
But cankering time may soil the flower,
And spoil its bonnie bloom.
Oh, come then, while the summer shines,
And love is young and gay;
Ere age his withering, wintry blast
Blaws o'er me and my May.

For thee I 'll tend the fleecy flocks,
Or haud the halesome plough;
And nightly clasp thee to my breast,
And prove aye leal and true.
The blush o'erspread her bonnie face,
She had nae mair to say,
But gae her hand and walk'd alang,
The youthfu', bloomin' May.

ALEXANDER RODGER.

Alexander Rodger was born on the 16th July 1784, at East Calder,
Midlothian. His father, originally a farmer, was lessee of the village
inn; he subsequently removed to Edinburgh, and latterly emigrated to
Hamburgh. Alexander was apprenticed in his twelfth year to a silversmith
in Edinburgh. On his father leaving the country, in 1797, he joined his
maternal relatives in Glasgow, who persuaded him to adopt the trade of a
weaver. He married in his twenty-second year; and contrived to add to
the family finances by cultivating a taste for music, and giving lessons
in the art. Extreme in his political opinions, he was led in 1819 to
afford his literary support to a journal originated with the design of
promoting disaffection and revolt. The connexion was attended with
serious consequences; he was convicted of revolutionary practices, and
sent to prison. On his release from confinement he was received into the
Barrowfield Works, as an inspector of cloths used for printing and
dyeing. He held this office during eleven years; he subsequently acted
as a pawnbroker, and a reporter of local intelligence to two different
newspapers. In 1836 he became assistant in the publishing office of the
_Reformers' Gazette_, a situation which he held till his death. This
event took place on the 26th September 1846.

Rodger published two small collections of verses, and a volume of "Poems
and Songs." Many of his poems, though abounding in humour, are
disfigured by coarse political allusions. Several of his songs are of a
high order, and have deserved