Friendship, mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweet’ner of Life, and solder of Society!
I owe thee much-Blair.
Dear Smith, the slee’st, pawkiethief,
That e’erattempted stealth or rief!
Ye surely hae some warlock-brief
Owre human hearts;
For ne’er a bosom yet was prief
Against your arts.
For me, I swear by sun an’ moon,
An’ ev’ry star that blinks aboon,
Ye’ve cost me twenty pair o’ shoon,
Just gaunto see you;
An’ ev’ry ither pair that’s done,
Mair taen I’m wi’ you.
That auld, capricious carlin, Nature,
To mak amends for scrimpitstature,
She’s turn’d you off, a human creature
On her first plan,
And in her freaks, on ev’ry feature
She’s wrote the Man.
Just now I’ve ta’en the fito’ rhyme,
My barmienoddle’s working prime.
My fancy yerkitup sublime,
Wi’ hasty summon;
Hae ye a leisure-moment’s time
To hear what’s comin?
Some rhyme a neibor’s name to lash;
Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu’ cash;
Some rhyme to court the countra clash,
An’ raisea din;
For me, an aim I never fash;
I rhyme for fun.
The star that rules my luckless lot,
Has fated me the russet coat,
An’ damn’d my fortune to the groat;
But, in requit,
Has blest me with a random-shot
O’countra wit.
This while my notion’s taena sklent,
To try my fate in guid, black prent;
But still the mairI’m that way bent,
Something cries “Hooklie!”
I redyou, honest man, tak tent?
Ye’ll shawyour folly;
“There’s itherpoets, much your betters,
Far seen in Greek, deep men o’ letters,
Haethought they had ensur’d their debtors,
A’ future ages;
Now moths deform, in shapeless tatters,
Their unknown pages.”
Then farewell hopes of laurel-boughs,
To garland my poetic brows!
Henceforth I’ll rove where busy ploughs
Are whistlin’ thrang,
An’ teach the lanely heights an’ howes
My rustic sang.
I’ll wander on, wi’ tentlessheed
How never-halting moments speed,
Till fate shall snapthe brittle thread;
Then, all unknown,
I’ll lay me with th’ inglorious dead
Forgot and gone!
But why o’ death being a tale?
Just now we’re living sound and hale;
Then top and maintop crowd the sail,
Heave Care o’er-side!
And large, before Enjoyment’s gale,
Let’s takthe tide.
This life, sae far’s I understand,
Is a’enchanted fairy-land,
Where Pleasure is the magic-wand,
That, wielded right,
Maks hours like minutes, hand in hand,
Dance by fu’light.
The magic-wand then let us wield;
For ance that five-an’-forty’s speel’d,
See, crazy, weary, joyless eild,
Wi’ wrinkl’d face,
Comes hostin, hirplin owrethe field,
We’ creepin pace.
When ancelife’s day draws near the gloamin,
Then fareweel vacant, careless roamin;
An’ fareweel cheerfu’ tankards foamin,
An’ social noise:
An’ fareweel dear, deluding woman,
The Joy of joys!
O Life! how pleasant, in thy morning,
Young Fancy’s rays the hills adorning!
Cold-pausing Caution’s lesson scorning,
We frisk away,
Like school-boys, at th’ expected warning,
To joy an’ play.
We wander there, we wander here,
We eye the rose upon the brier,
Unmindful that the thorn is near,
Among the leaves;
And tho’ the puny wound appear,
Short while it grieves.
Some, lucky, find a flow’ry spot,
For which they never toil’d nor swat;
They drink the sweet and eat the fat,
But care or pain;
And haply eye the barren hut
With high disdain.
With steady aim, some Fortune chase;
Keen hope does ev’ry sinew brace;
Thro’ fair, thro’ foul, they urge the race,
An’ seize the prey:
Then cannie, in some cozie place,
They close the day.
And others, like your humble servan’,
Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin,
To right or left eternal swervin,
They zig-zag on;
Till, curst with age, obscure an’ starvin,
They aftengroan.
Alas! what bitter toil an’ straining-
But truce with peevish, poor complaining!
Is fortune’s fickle Luna waning?
E’n let her gang!
Beneath what light she has remaining,
Let’s sing our sang.
My pen I here fling to the door,
And kneel, ye Pow’rs! and warm implore,
“Tho’ I should wander Terra o’er,
In all her climes,
Grant me but this, I ask nomore,
Aye rowtho’rhymes.
“Gie dreepin roasts to countralairds,
Tillicicles hingfraetheir beards;
Gie fine brawclaesto fine life-guards,
And maids of honour;
An’ yillan’whisky gie to cairds,
Until they sconner.
“A title, Dempster^1merits it;
A garter gie to Willie Pitt;
Giewealth to some be-ledger’d cit,
In cent. per cent.;
But give me real, sterling wit,
And I’m content.
“While ye are pleas’d to keep me hale,
I’ll sit down o’er my scanty meal,
Be’t water-brose or muslin-kail,
Wi’ cheerfu’ face,
As lang’s the Muses dinnafail
To say the grace.”
Ananxious e’eI never throws
Behint my lug, orby my nose;
I joukbeneath Misfortune’s blows
As weel’s I may;
Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose,
I rhyme away.
O ye doucefolk that live byrule,
Grave, tideless-blooded, calm an’cool,
Compar’d wi’ you-O fool! fool! fool!
How much unlike!
Your hearts are just a standing pool,
Your lives, a dyke!
Nae hair-brain’d, sentimental traces
In your unletter’d, nameless faces!
In arioso trills and graces
Ye never stray;
But gravissimo, solemn basses
Ye hum away.
Ye are saegrave, nae doubt ye’re wise;
Nae ferlytho’ ye do despise
The hairum-scairum, ram-stamboys,
The rattling squad:
I see ye upward cast your eyes-
Ye kenthe road!
Whilst I-but I shall haudme there,
Wi’ you I’ll scarce gangony where-
Then, Jamie, I shall say naemair,
Butquatmy sang,
Content wi’you to maka pair.
Whare’er I gang.