In this strange land, this uncouth clime,
A land unknown to prose or rhyme;
Where words ne’er cross’t the Muse’s heckles,
Nor limpit in poetic shackles:
A land that Prose did never view it,
Except when drunk he stacher’t thro’ it;
Here, ambush’d by the chimlacheek,
Hid in anatmosphere of reek,
I hear a wheel thrum i’ the neuk,
I hear it-for in vain I leuk.
The redpeat gleams, a fiery kernel,
Enhusked by a fog infernal:
Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,
I sit and count my sins bychapters;
For life and spunklike itherChristians,
I’m dwindled down to mere existence,
Wi’ nae converse but Gallowa’ bodies,
Wi’ nae kenn’d face but Jenny Geddes,
Jenny, my Pegasean pride!
Dowieshe saunters down Nithside,
And aye a westlinleukshe throws,
While tears hapo’er her auld brown nose!
Was it for this, wi’ canniecare,
Thou burethe Bard throughmany a shire?
At howes, or hillocks never stumbled,
And late or early never grumbled?-
O had I power like inclination,
I’d heezethee up a constellation,
To canter with the Sagitarre,
Or loupthe ecliptic like a bar;
Orturn the pole like any arrow;
Or, when auldPhoebus bids good-morrow,
Down the zodiac urge the race,
And cast dirt on his godship’s face;
For I could lay my bread and kail
He’d ne’er cast sautupo’ thy tail. –
Wi’a’ this care and a’this grief,
And sma’, sma’prospect of relief,
And nought but peat reeki’my head,
How can I write what ye can read?-
Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o’June,
Ye’ll find me in a better tune;
Buttillwe meet and weet our whistle,
Takthis excuse for naeepistle.
Robert Burns.