First printed in part by Stewart, 1802, then completed
in Scott Douglas, 1876.
‘I cannot but remember such things were,
And were most dear to me’.
Adapted from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act 4, scene 3.
In vain would Prudence with decorous sneer,
Point out a cens’ring world, and bid me fear:
Above that world on wings of love I rise:
I know its worst, and can that worst despise. —
5 ‘Wrong’d, injur’d, shunn’d, unpitied, unredrest
The mock’d quotation of the scorner’s jest.’ —
Let Prudence’ direst bodements on me fall,
Clarinda, rich reward! o’erpays them all. —
As low-borne mists before the sun remove,
10 So shines, so reigns unrivalled mighty LOVE. —
In vain the Laws their feeble force oppose;
Chain’d at his feet, they groan Love’s vanquish’d foes;
In vain Religion meets my shrinking eye;
I dare not combat, but I turn and fly:
15 Conscience in vain upbraids th’ unhallow’d fire;
Love grasps his scorpions, stifled they expire:
Reason drops headlong from his sacred throne,
Thy dear idea reigns, and reigns alone;
Each thought intoxicated homage yields,
20 And riots wanton in forbidden fields. —
By all on High, adoring mortals know!
By all the conscious villain fears below!
By what, Alas! much more my soul alarms,
My doubtful hopes once more to fill thy arms!
25 Ev’n shouldst thou, false, forswear the guilty tie,
Thine and thine only I must live and die!!!
This began as a poetic fragment in 1788. It was modified and expanded in 1789, but remained unfinished until 1793. The first stage written about Clarinda (Mrs McLehose) included the lines:
‘I burn, I burn, as when thro’ ripen’d corn
By driving winds the crackling flames are borne.’
Now, maddening-wild, I curse that fatal night,
Now bless the hour that charm’d my guilty sight.
The topic of the 1789 version changed from Clarinda to the affair of Mrs Maxwell Campbell of Cumnock who had given birth to a child by the then married Captain James Montgomery. Letter 307 reveals that this version was written in the voice of Mrs Maxwell Campbell, to her lover. The affair was public knowledge given that the dispute over the child went to the Court of Session. (See also Letter 310 to Mrs Dunlop.) Montgomerie went overseas: here are some of the lines written in her plaintive voice, later dropped,
Mild zephyrs waft thee to life’s farthest shore,
Nor think of me and my distresses more!
Falsehood accurst! No! Still I beg a place,
Still near thy heart some little, little trace!
For that dear trace the world I would resign:
O, let me live, and die, and think it mine!
By all I lov’d, neglected, and forgot,
No friendly face e’er lights my squalid cot.
Shunn’d, hated, wrong’d, unpitied, unredrest
The mock’d quotation of the scorner’s jest;
Ev’n the poor support of my wretched life,
Snatched by the violence of legal strife;
Oft grateful for my very daily bread,
To those my family’s once large bounty fed;
A welcome inmate at their homely fare,
My griefs, my woes, my sighs, my tears they share:
Their vulgar souls unlike the souls refined,
The fashion’d marble of the polish’d mind.
The poem eventually reverted to its original plan, as a work dedicated to Clarinda, when Burns met her again in 1791. The title Passion’s Cry, employed by all modern editors, is not by Burns.