While new-ca’dkyerowteat the stake
An’ pownies reekin pleughor braik,
This hour on e’enin’s edge I take,
To own I’m debtor
To honest-hearted, auld Lapraik,
For his kind letter.
Forjesketsair, with weary legs,
Rattlin the corn out-owre the rigs,
Or dealing thro’ amang the naigs
Their ten-hours’ bite,
My awkartMuse sairpleads and begs
I would nawrite.
The tapetless, ramfeezl’dhizzie,
She’s saftat best an’ something lazy:
Quo’she, “Ye ken we’ve been sae busy
This month an’ mair,
That trowth, my head is grown right dizzie,
An’ something sair.”
Her dowff excuses patme mad;
“Conscience,” says I, “ye thowlessjade!
I’ll write, an’ that a hearty blaud,
This veranight;
So dinnaye affront your trade,
But rhyme it right.
“Shall bauldLapraik, the king o’ hearts,
Tho’ mankind were a pack o’ cartes,
Rooseyou sae weel for your deserts,
In terms sae friendly;
Yet ye’ll neglect to shawyour parts
An’ thank him kindly?”
Sae I gat paper in a blink,
An’ down gaed stumpiein the ink:
Quoth I, “Before I sleep a wink,
I vow I’ll close it;
An’ if ye winna mak it clink,
By Jove, I’ll prose it!”
Sae I’ve begun to scrawl, but whether
In rhyme, or prose, or baith thegither;
Or some hotch-potch that’s rightly neither,
Let time makproof;
But I shall scribble down some blether
Just clean aff-loof.
My worthy friend, ne’er grudge an’ carp,
Tho’ fortune use you hard an’ sharp;
Come, kittle up your moorland harp
Wi’ gleesome touch!
Ne’er mind how Fortune waft and warp;
She’s but a bitch.
She ‘s gienme mony a jirtan’ fleg,
Sin’I could striddleowre a rig;
But, by the Lord, tho’ I should beg
Wi’ lyartpow,
I’ll laugh an’ sing, an’ shake my leg,
As lang’s I dow!
Now comes the sax-an’-twentieth simmer
I’ve seen the bud upon the timmer,
Still persecuted by the limmer
Frae year to year;
But yet, despite the kittle kimmer,
I, Rob, am here.
Do ye envy the city gent,
Behint a kistto lie an’ sklent;
Or pursue-proud, bigwi’ cent. per cent.
An’ muckle wame,
In some bitbrughto represent
A bailie’s name?
Or is’t the paughty, feudal thane,
Wi’ ruffl’d sarkan’ glancing cane,
Wha thinks himselnae sheep-shankbane,
But lordly stalks;
While caps and bonnets affare taen,
As by he walks?
“O Thou wha gies us each guid gift!
Gie me o’ wit an’ sense a lift,
Then turn me, if thou please, adrift,
Thro’ Scotland wide;
Wi’ cits nor lairds I wadnashift,
In a’ their pride!”
Were this the charter of our state,
“On pain o’ hell be rich an’ great,”
Damnation then would be our fate,
Beyond remead;
But, thanks to heaven, that’s no the gate
We learn our creed.
For thus the royal mandate ran,
When first the human race began;
“The social, friendly, honest man,
Whate’er he be-
‘Tis he fulfils great Nature’s plan,
And none but he.”
O mandate glorious and divine!
The ragged followers o’ the Nine,
Poor, thoughtless devils! yet may shine
In glorious light,
While sordid sons o’ Mammon’s line
Are dark as night!
Tho’ here they scrape, an’ squeeze, an’ growl,
Their worthless nievefu’ of a soul
May in some future carcase howl,
The forest’s fright;
Or in some day-detesting owl
May shun the light.
Then may Lapraik and Burns arise,
To reach their native, kindred skies,
And sing their pleasures, hopes an’ joys,
In some mild sphere;
Still closer knit in friendship’s ties,
Each passing year!
Epistle To William Simson
Schoolmaster, Ochiltree. – May, 1785
I gat your letter, winsome Willie;
Wi’ gratefu’ heart I thank you brawlie;
Tho’ I maunsay’t, I wad be silly,
And uncovain,
Should I believe, my coaxin billie
Your flatterin strain.
But I’sebelieve ye kindly meant it:
I sudbe laithto think ye hinted
Ironic satire, sidelinssklented
On my poor Musie;
Tho’ in sic phraisinterms ye’ve penn’d it,
I scarce excuse ye.
My senses wad be in a creel,
Should I but dare a hope to speel
Wi’ Allan, or wi’ Gilbertfield,
The braes o’ fame;
Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel,
A deathless name.
(O Fergusson! thy glorious parts
Ill suited law’s dry, musty arts!
My curse upon your whunstane hearts,
Ye E’nbrugh gentry!
The tithe o’ what ye waste at cartes
Wad stow’d his pantry!)
Yet when a tale comes i’ my head,
Or lassies gie my heart a screed-
As whiles they’re like to be my dead,
(O sad disease!)
I kittleup my rustic reed;
It gies me ease.
Auld Coilanow may fidgefu’fain,
She’s gottenpoets o’ her ain;
Chiels whatheir chanters winnahain,
But tune their lays,
Till echoes a’ resound again
Her weel-sung praise.
Nae poet thought her worth his while,
To set her name in measur’d style;
She lay like some unkenn’d-of-isle
Beside New Holland,
Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil
Besouth Magellan.
Ramsay an’ famous Fergusson
GiedForth an’ Tay a liftaboon;
Yarrow an’ Tweed, to monie a tune,
Owre Scotland rings;
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an’ Doon
Naebody sings.
Th’ Illissus, Tiber, Thames, an’ Seine,
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu’ line:
But Willie, setyour fitto mine,
An’ cockyour crest;
We’ll garour streams an’ burnies shine
Up wi’ the best!
We’ll sing auld Coila’s plains an’ fells,
Her moors red-brown wi’ heather bells,
Her banks an’ braes, her dens and dells,
Whare glorious Wallace
Aft bure the gree, as story tells,
Frae Suthronbillies.
At Wallace’ name, what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood!
Oft have our fearless fathers strode
By Wallace’ side,
Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod,
Or glorious died!
O, sweet are Coila’s haughsan’ woods,
When lintwhites chant amang the buds,
And jinkin hares, in amorous whids,
Their loves enjoy;
While thro’ the braes the cushatcroods
With wailfu’ cry!
Ev’n winter bleak has charms to me,
When winds rave thro’ the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree
Are hoary gray;
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,
Dark’ning the day!
O Nature! a’ thy shews an’ forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms!
Whether the summer kindly warms,
Wi’ life an light;
Or winter howls, in gustystorms,
The lang, dark night!
The muse, nae poet ever fandher,
Till by himselhe learn’d to wander,
Adown some trottin burn’s meander,
An’ no think lang:
O sweet to stray, an’ pensive ponder
A heart-felt sang!
The war’ly race may drudge an’ drive,
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an’ strive;
Let me fair Nature’s face descrive,
And I, wi’ pleasure,
Shall let the busy, grumbling hive
Bumowre their treasure.
Fareweel, “my rhyme-composing” brither!
We’ve been owrelangunkenn’d to ither:
Now let us lay our heads thegither,
In love fraternal:
May envy wallopin a tether,
Black fiend, infernal!
While Highlandmen hate tools an’ taxes;
While moorlan’s herds like guid, fat braxies;
While terra firma, on her axis,
Diurnal turns;
Count on a friend, in faith an’ practice,
In Robert Burns.
Postcript
My memory’s nowortha preen;
I had amaist forgotten clean,
Ye bademe write you what they mean
By this “new-light,”
‘Boutwhich our herds sae afthaebeen
Maistlike to fight.
In days when mankind were but callans
At grammar, logic, an’ sic talents,
They took nae pains their speech to balance,
Or rules to gie;
But spaktheir thoughts in plain, braidlallans,
Like you or me.
In thaeauld times, they thought the moon,
Just like a sark, orpair o’shoon,
Wore by degrees, till her last roon
Gaed past their viewin;
An’ shortly after she was done
They gat a new ane.
This passed for certain, undisputed;
It ne’er cami’ their heads to doubt it,
Till chiels gat up an’ wad confute it,
An’ ca’d it wrang;
An’ muckledinthere was about it,
Baithloud an’ lang.
Some herds, weellearn’d upo’ the beuk,
Wadthreapauld folk the thing misteuk;
For ’twas the auld moon turn’d a neuk
An’ out of’ sight,
An’ backlins-cominto the leuk
She grew mairbright.
This was deny’d, it was affirm’d;
The herds and hisselswere alarm’d
The rev’rend gray-beards rav’d an’ storm’d,
That beardless laddies
Should think they better wer inform’d,
Than their auld daddies.
Frae less to mair, it gaedto sticks;
Fraewords an’ aiths to clours an’ nicks;
Anmoniea fallowgat his licks,
Wi’ hearty crunt;
An’ some, to learn them for their tricks,
Were hang’d an’ brunt.
This game was play’d in mony lands,
An’ auld-light caddies buresic hands,
That faith, the youngsters took the sands
Wi’ nimble shanks;
Till lairds forbad, by strict commands,
Sic bluidypranks.
But new-light herds gatsic a cowe,
Folk thought them ruin’d stick-an-stowe;
Tillnow, amaiston ev’ry knowe
Ye’ll find aneplac’d;
An’ some their new-light fair avow,
Just quite barefac’d.
Naedoubt the auld-light flocks are bleatin;
Their zealous herds are vex’d an’ sweatin;
Mysel’, I’ve even seen them greetin
Wi’ girnin spite,
To hear the moon saesadly lied on
Byword an’ write.
But shortly they will cowethe louns!
Some auld-light herds in neebortouns
Are mind’t, in things they ca’balloons,
To taka flight;
An’ stay aemonth amangthe moons
An’ see them right.
Guidobservation they will giethem;
An’ when the auldmoon’s gaunto lea’e them,
The hindmaist shaird, they’ll fetch it wi’them
Just i’their pouch;
An’when the new-light billies see them,
I think they’ll crouch!
Sae, ye observe that a’this clatter
Is naethingbut a “moonshine matter”;
Buttho’ dull prose-folk Latin splatter
In logic tulyie,
I hope we bardies kensome better
Than mindsicbrulyie.