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COPYRIGHT, 1907 
 BY SHERWIN CODY 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Burns, Life. 9 
 
 Love Songs. 
 
 My Nanie, 0 . 37 
 
 On Cessnock’s Banks. 38 
 
 Mary Morison. 40 
 
 Now Westlin Winds. 41 
 
 Green Grow the Rashes, 0 . 43 
 
 The Lament. 44 
 
 Flow Gently, Sweet Afton. 46 
 
 The Highland Lassie. 48 
 
 A Prayer for Mary. 49 
 
 Will ye go to the Indies, my May?. 51 
 
 Tho’ Cruel Fate. 51 
 
 Written on the Blank Leaf (of a copy of his 
 
 poems) . 51 
 
 Bonie Doon. 52 
 
 Where, braving angry winter’s storms. 53 
 
 My Peggy’s Face. 53 
 
 Banks of Devon. 54 
 
 I love my Jean. 55 
 
 I hae a wife of my ain. 56 
 
 My Bonie Mary.56 
 
 To Mary in Heaven. 56 
 
 fThe Blue-Eyed Lassie. 59 
 
Tibbie Dunbar. 60 
 
 John Anderson my Jo. 60 
 
 My heart’s in the Highlands. 61 
 
 The Bonie Wee Thing. 61 
 
 Farewell to Nancy. 62 
 
 My Nannie’s Awa. 63 
 
 Bonie Lesley. 64 
 
 My Wife’s a Winsome Wee Thing. 65 
 
 Highland Mary. 66 
 
 Duncan Gray. 67 
 
 Galla Water. 68 
 
 O, whistle, an’ I’ll come to ye, my lad. 69 
 
 The Lovely Lass of Inverness. 70 
 
 A Red, Red Rose. 71 
 
 Lassie wi’ the Lint-white Locks. 71 
 
 Hey for a Lass wi’ a Tocher. 72 
 
 O, wert thou in the cauld blast. 73 
 
 Coming Through the Rye. 74 
 
 Other Songs. 
 
 M’Pherson’s Farewell. 75 
 
 Auld Lang Syne. 76 
 
 O, Willie brewed a peck o’ maut. 77 
 
 The Deil’s awa wi’ th’ Exciseman. 78 
 
 Bannockburn . 79 
 
 Contented wi’ little. 80 
 
 The Man’s the Gowd for a’ That. 81 
 
Longer Poems. 
 
 Holy Willie’s Prayer. 83 
 
 To a Mouse. 87 
 
 Man Was Made to Mourn. 89 
 
 The Cotter’s Saturday Night. 92 
 
 Address to the Deil. 99 
 
 The Auld Farmer’s Salutation to his Mare. 104 
 
 To a Mountain Daisy. 108 
 
 The Twa Dogs. 110 
 
 Address to the Unco Guid. 118 
 
 Tam o’ Shanter. 121 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2020 with funding from 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 https://archive.org/details/eveningwithburnsOOburn 
 
BURNS 
 
 Lord Tennyson, the aristocratic, reserved, pro¬ 
 fessional poet, patiently polishing his verses through 
 many years until at last he was rewarded by being 
 made poet laureate and a peer; Longfellow, the 
 Harvard professor, whose sweet, melodious, and 
 gentle songs were inspired by a perfectly correct 
 life, and Burns, “Bobbie Burns” as we prefer to 
 call him, ploughing, sinning, repenting, writing his 
 poems at odd moments as his principal pleasure in 
 life—these are about as widely different as human 
 beings and poets can be, but their histories should 
 teach us that life is broad and varied, and there 
 is just as much of interest in one phase as another. 
 We may dislike the haughty coldness of Tennyson, 
 yet it gave us the pleasing music and figurative 
 beauty of his verse; and we may find distasteful the 
 placid shallowness of Longfellow, yet it gave us the 
 sweet, tuneful melodies which have become house¬ 
 hold words in so many thousand homes; and we 
 may regret the passionate and unfortunate love af¬ 
 fairs of Burns, yet they gave us the most beautiful, 
 true, and tender love songs human pen ever wrote. 
 The same passions that in Burns went to extremes 
 are to be found in the breasts of half the world, and 
 are the source of more than half the joy there is in 
 life. Even the excesses of his passions did not kill 
 out the sweet, the tender, and the beautiful; if he 
 did wrong, he repented, and in the best of his poems 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 BURNS 
 
 we have only that which all must admire. The 
 world has agreed to forgive him and to love him. 
 He has always been the special pride of the Scotch¬ 
 man; but no other English poet has been so uni¬ 
 versally adopted in all parts of the world. 
 
 Born in a Clay Hut. 
 
 Robert Burns was born in a cottage built of clay 
 by his father, on a small farm two miles south of 
 Ayr, January 25, 1759. A week after his birth 
 a terrible windstorm blew in the gable, and mother 
 and child had to be carried at midnight to the house 
 of a neighbor. 
 
 Burns’s father, who spelt his name “Burnes,” was 
 a fairly well educated and rather superior farmer, 
 and his mother “had a fine complexion, bright dark 
 eyes, cheerful spirits, and a memory stored with 
 song and ballad—a love for which Robert drew in 
 with her milk.” Both were persons of firm integrity 
 and strict piety. In The Cotter’s Saturday Night 
 the poet described his own home, his father, the 
 “toil-worn Cotter,” collecting his “spades, his mat¬ 
 tocks, and his hoes, hoping the morn in ease and 
 rest to spend.” The life was one of the hardest, 
 most grinding toil, and “weary” indeed he often 
 was as “o’er the moor his course he hameward 
 bends.” Yet in all the hardship there was a happi¬ 
 ness none could take away. 
 
 His wee bit ingle, blinking bonilie. 
 
 His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile, 
 The -lisping infant prattling on his knee, O 
 Does all his weary carking care beguile, 
 
 An’ make him quite forget his labour an’ his toil. 
 
 ISlU 
 
LIFE 
 
 11 
 
 A Life of Grinding Toil. 
 
 Robert was the eldest of seven children. When 
 he was seven (in 1766) his father moved to an¬ 
 other farm not far away, called Mount Oliphant. 
 But it was a very poor farm, and for eleven years 
 the family had a hard struggle. The two eldest 
 boys, Robert and Gilbert, had to do the work of 
 men. It was a life of incessant, terrible, weary 
 work. Yet the father did everything he could for 
 the education of his children. When Robert was 
 seven, four neighbors clubbed together to hire a 
 teacher named Murdoch for Robert and Gilbert. 
 Gilbert appeared the brighter of the two, and Rob¬ 
 ert “wore a grave and thoughtful look.” In church 
 music the boys lagged far behind, and Robert’s ear 
 is said to have been so dull that he could scarcely 
 distinguish one tune from another. This seems 
 strange when we remember that Burns is one of 
 the greatest song writers the world has ever seen. 
 Murdoch taught him to read good books, and by 
 the time he was eleven, he tells us, he was “a 
 critic in substantives, verbs, and particles.” His 
 kind, judicious, and thoughtful father had good 
 books in the house, too, and they read together the 
 Spectator, Shakespeare’s plays. Pope, Locke on The 
 Human TJnderstanding, Boyle’s Lectures, and Allan 
 Ramsay’s works. But Robert’s favorite volume was 
 a collection of songs, of which he says, “This was 
 my vade mecum. I pored over them driving my 
 cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by 
 verse; carefully noting the true, tender, or sublime, 
 from affectation and fustian. I am convinced I 
 
12 
 
 BURNS 
 
 owed to this practice much of my critic-craft, such 
 as it is!” There was in the family, also, a certain 
 old woman named Betty Davidson, who had the 
 largest collection in the country of tales and songs 
 concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, and the like, which 
 no doubt supplied Robert with the material he used 
 in his Tam O’Shanter and Address to the Deil. 
 Murdoch also lent the boy a Life of Hannibal, and 
 a neighboring blacksmith lent him a History of 
 Sir William Wallace. Such was the basis of his 
 learning. Not much, but enough for a Burns. 
 
 The First Love Song. 
 
 When Robert was sixteen the family moved to 
 another farm, but not beLre Burns had found out 
 what love was, and written a poem to his loved one 
 (Handsome Nell). “You know,” he says, “our 
 country custom of coupling a man and woman to¬ 
 gether as partners in the labours of the harvest. 
 In my fifteenth summer my partner was a bewitch¬ 
 ing creature, a year younger than myself. My 
 scarcity of English denies me the power of doing 
 her justice in that language, but you know the 
 Scotch idiom. She was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. 
 In short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, 
 initiated me in that delicious passion, which in spite 
 of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and 
 book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of hu¬ 
 man joys here below! How she caught the contagion 
 I cannot tell. . . . Indeed, I did not know myself 
 why I liked so much to loiter behind with her when 
 returning in the evening from our labours, why the 
 
LIFE 
 
 13 
 
 tones of her voice made my heart strings thrill like 
 an yEolian harp; and especially why my pulse beat 
 such a furious ratan when I looked and fingered 
 over her little hand, to pick out the cruel nettle- 
 stings and thistles. Among her love-inspiring qual¬ 
 ities she sung sweetly; and it was her favourite 
 reel to which I attempted giving an embodied ve¬ 
 hicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to 
 imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, 
 composed by men who read Greek and Latin; but 
 my girl sung a song which was said to be com¬ 
 posed by a country laird’s son, on one of his father’s 
 maids, with whom he was in love; and I saw 
 no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; 
 for, excepting that he could shear sheep and cast 
 peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had no 
 more scholarcraft than myself. Thus with me be¬ 
 gan love and poetry.” This first song ran: 
 
 She dresses aye sae clean and neat, 
 
 Baith decent and genteel, 
 
 And then there’s something in her gait 
 Gars ony dress look week 
 
 “I composed it,” says Burns, “in a wild enthu¬ 
 siasm of passion, and to this hour I never recollect 
 it but my heart melts, my blood sallies at the re¬ 
 membrance.” 
 
 Work and Love-Making. 
 
 After the family moved to Lochlea, Burns went 
 to dancing school “to give his manners a finish,” 
 and there was hardly a pretty lass in that parish 
 
14 
 
 BURNS 
 
 of Tarbolton on whom he did not write a poem. 
 The grinding toil of^the farm, continued, however, 
 though at first the conditions were somewhat better, 
 and Gilbert and Robert received seven pounds apiece 
 in wages. 
 
 In his nineteenth summer he went to Kirkoswald 
 to study mensuration or surveying. The region 
 was infested with smugglers, to whom he was in¬ 
 troduced with “scenes of swaggering riot and roar¬ 
 ing dissipation.” The fact is. Burns was a brilliant, 
 witty talker, and always extremely popular at the 
 gay tavern meetings which offered the chief social 
 life of those times. But the study of mensuration 
 went on till one day in the Kailyard behind the 
 teacher’s house he met a young lass, and “the 
 ebullition of that passion ended the school business 
 in Kirkoswald,” he himself tells us. But he had 
 been reading the songs of Shenstone and Thomson 
 while at Kirkoswald, and however much love-mak¬ 
 ing interfered with other things, it helped on his 
 song-writing, for the more he loved the more he 
 sang. 
 
 “While the love-making was incessant,” says his 
 brother Gilbert, “it was governed by the strictest 
 rules of virtue and modesty, from which he never 
 deviated till he reached his twenty-third year.” 
 And Gilbert recalls that in these days “Robert was 
 sure to enliven their toil with a rattling fire of 
 witty remarks on men and things, mingled with 
 the expressions of a genial, glowing heart, and the 
 whole perfectly free from the taint which he after¬ 
 wards acquired from his contact with the world. Not 
 
LIFE 
 
 15 
 
 even in those volumes which afterwards charmed 
 his country from end to end did Gilbert see his 
 brother in so interesting a light as in these conversa¬ 
 tions in the bog where they went to cut peat, with 
 only two or three noteless peasants for an audience.” 
 
 An Unrequited Love Inspires a Great Song. 
 
 He was not quite twenty-three when he fell in 
 love with the daughter of a small farmer, who was 
 a servant in a family on Cessnock Water, about two 
 miles from Lochlea. Ellison Begbie was not a 
 beauty, but she had an unusual liveliness and grace 
 of mind, and Burns would have liked to marry her 
 and settle down in life. She would have none of 
 him, however. His fruitless love for her inspired 
 his first really great love song, the one called “Mary 
 Morison,” one verse of which reads,— 
 
 Oh, Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, 
 
 Wha for thy sake would gladly die; 
 
 Or canst thou break that heart of his, 
 
 Whase only faut is loving thee? 
 
 If love for love thou wilt na gie. 
 
 At least be pity to me shown; 
 
 A thought ungentle canna be. 
 
 The thought o’ Mary Morison. 
 
 His father had been giving him a piece of ground 
 each year on which he raised flax, and he thought 
 it would be a good idea to learn flax dressing. 
 Accordingly he went to Irvine to live with a rela¬ 
 tive of his mother’s, but here he met some smug¬ 
 glers and tavern companions, and when they were 
 
16 
 
 BURNS 
 
 welcoming the new year in bacchanalian fashion the 
 house caught fire and burned down. This ended the 
 flax-dressing project. 
 
 It was about this time that Burns became a Free¬ 
 mason, taking an enthusiastic interest in the society. 
 
 He Learns the Meaning of Lawless Love. 
 
 He seems to have had no love affairs at Irvine, 
 but he met a wild sailor lad who had a wonderful 
 fascination for him. “He was,” says Burns, “the 
 only man I ever knew who was a greater fool than 
 myself, where woman was the presiding star; but 
 he spoke of lawless love with a levity which hith¬ 
 erto I had regarded with horror. Here his friend¬ 
 ship did me a mischief.” Another companion in¬ 
 duced him to adopt “more liberal opinions” of life 
 and religion. At the same time all who met him 
 were struck with his air of melancholy and gloomy 
 silence.' He wrote to his father, “As for this world, 
 I despair of ever making a figure in it. I am not 
 formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of 
 the gay. I shall never again be capable of entering 
 into such scenes. Indeed, I am altogether uncon¬ 
 cerned at the thoughts of this life. I foresee that 
 poverty and obscurity probably await me, and I 
 am in some measure prepared, and daily preparing 
 to meet them.” Already he was beginning to feel the 
 heavy hand of that fate which was to crush out his 
 life, and the thought made him desperate and reck¬ 
 less, as similar circumstances did in the case of 
 Poe many years later. Those who have felt this 
 blighting touch and shared in this desperation will 
 
LIFE 
 
 17 
 
 forgive much to the sensitive and gifted poets who 
 were driven by it to indulgences and excesses which 
 seemed the only refuge to a darkened soul. 
 
 Scotch Farming. 
 
 Toward the end of 1783 the two elder sons real¬ 
 ized that something must be done to meet the im¬ 
 pending crisis in their financial affairs, and on 
 their own account took another farm at Mossgiel, 
 in the parish of Mauchline, two or three miles from 
 Lochlea. The father’s health had long been yield¬ 
 ing under the struggle against poverty, and in the 
 following February (1784) he died. 
 
 The farm was about 118 acres of cold clay soil, 
 but Robert Burns made a firm resolution to be 
 prudent and industrious. “I read farming books,” 
 he says, “I calculated crops, I attended markets, 
 and, in short, in spite of the devil, the world, and 
 the flesh, I should have been a wise man; but the 
 first year, from unfortunately buying bad seed, the 
 second from a late harvest, we lost half our crops. 
 This overset all my wisdom, and I returned like 
 the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed 
 to her wallowing in the mire.” 
 
 The fact is, his widowed mother had to receive 
 into her family and bring up “a child that never 
 should have been born.” The church took note of 
 it and publicly punished him for his sin, and he 
 wrote wicked and witty verses about it to his friend 
 and boon companion, John Rankine. This intro¬ 
 duced the poet to a new phase of his life. The. 
 clergy of the country were divided into two camps. 
 
18 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Auld Lights and New Lights. It was the Auld 
 Light minister who had punished Burns for his 
 sin, and this drove him to take sides with the New 
 Lights, who were more tolerant and easy in their 
 ways. The fact is, however, the elder Burns had 
 had leanings toward the New Lights, and two friends 
 Robert made at this time, Mr. Gavin Hamilton, 
 from whom he held his farm on a sublease, and 
 Mr. Aiken, to whom the Cotter’s Saturday Night 
 is dedicated, were in the thick of personal dis¬ 
 putes with the Auld Light clergyman and the local 
 church authorities. The lively interest that Burns 
 took in these church quarrels gave birth to his 
 witty satires, the Two Herds, Holy Willie’s Prayer, 
 and the Holy Fair. Thus Burns publicly committed 
 himself, challenging not only the conventional and 
 respectable world, but even the supporters of law, 
 order, and public reverence. 
 
 In his noted essay on Burns Carlyle says, “With 
 principles assailed by evil example from without, by 
 ‘passions raging like demons’ from within, he had lit¬ 
 tle need of skeptical misgivings to whisper treason in 
 the heat of the battle, or to cut off his retreat if he 
 were already defeated. He loses his feeling of in¬ 
 nocence ; his mind is at variance with itself; the 
 old divinity no longer presides there; but wild De¬ 
 sires and wild Repentance alternately oppress him. 
 Ere long, too, he had committed himself before the 
 world; his character for sobriety, dear to a Scottish 
 peasant as few corrupted worldings can even con¬ 
 ceive, is destroyed in the eyes of men; and his only 
 refuge consists in trying to disbelieve his guilti- 
 
LIFb 
 
 19 
 
 ness, and that is but a refuge of lies. The blackest 
 desperation gathers over him, broken only by the 
 red lightnings of remorse.” 
 
 The Cotter's Saturday Night. 
 
 Yet at the very time he was writing his satires 
 against the church, he composed that most touch¬ 
 ing and beautiful picture of the simple religion of 
 the Scotch peasant, The Cotter’s Saturday Night, 
 which he repeated one Sunday afternoon to his 
 brother Gilbert as they were out for a walk; and 
 the brother describes himself as electrified, as well 
 he might be. As a matter of fact, since the death 
 of his father Robert had himself led the family 
 worship, and his sister speaks with the greatest ad¬ 
 miration of the style of his prayers. 
 
 The failure of his crops in these years of 1784 
 and 1785 seems to have awakened in him the con¬ 
 viction that his destiny was to be a poet, an ambi¬ 
 tion which he describes in his commonplace book 
 as follows: After speaking with admiration of the 
 works of Ramsey and Ferguson, whom he always 
 refers to as his models, he goes on, “Yet we have 
 never had one Scotch poet of any eminence to 
 make the fertile banks of Irvine, the romantic wood¬ 
 lands and sequestered scenes of Ayr, and the healthy 
 mountainous 'source and winding sweep of Doon, 
 emulate Tay, Forth, Ettrick, Tweed. This is a 
 complaint I would gladly remedy, but, alas! I am 
 far unequal to the task, both in native genius and 
 in education. Obscure I am, obscure I must be. 
 
20 
 
 URNS 
 
 though no young poet nor young soldier’s heart 
 ever beat more fondly for fame than mine.” 
 
 In a period of about six months, from November, 
 1785, to April, 1786, he wrote most of those de¬ 
 scriptive poems which have done so much to make 
 bis name famous—Halloween, To a Mouse, The 
 Jolly Beggars, The Cotter’s Saturday Night, Ad¬ 
 dress to the Deil, The Auld Farmer’s Address to 
 His Auld Mare, The Vision, The Twa Dogs, The 
 Mountain Daisy, and some six or seven epistles 
 to brother bards. 
 
 In one of his epistles* he says of the joy it was to 
 him to write these poems, 
 
 Leeze me on rhyme! it’s aye a treasure. 
 
 My chief, amaist my only pleasure. 
 
 At hame, a-fiel’, at wark, at leisure, 
 
 The Muse, poor hizzie! 
 
 Tho’ rough and raploch be her measure. 
 
 She’s seldom lazy. 
 
 Chambers, one of Burns’s biographers, thus de¬ 
 scribes the garret in which all of these poems were 
 written: “The farmhouse of Mossgiel, which still 
 exists almost unchanged since the days of the poet, is 
 very small, consisting of only two rooms, a but and a 
 ben, as they are called in Scotland. Over these, 
 reached by a trap stair, is a small garret, in which 
 Robert and his brother used to sleep. Thither, when 
 he had returned from his day’s work, the poet used 
 to retire, and seat himself at a small deal table, 
 lighted by a narrow skylight in the roof, to tran¬ 
 scribe the verses which he had composed in the fields. 
 
LIFE 
 
 21 
 
 His favourite time for composition was at the 
 plough. Long years afterward his sister, Mrs. 
 Begg, used to tell how, when her brother had 
 gone forth again to field-work, she would steal up to 
 the garret and search the drawer of the deal table 
 for the verses which Robert had newly transcribed.” 
 
 Burns Meets His Future Wife. 
 
 There can have been very little drinking or 
 carousing during this Mossgiel period, for Gilbert 
 says Robert’s private expenditures did not exceed 
 seven pounds a year. His principal pleasures must 
 have been verse-making and love-making. Soon 
 after he came to this farm he had met Jean Ar¬ 
 mour at a penny wedding, and their acquaintance 
 soon ripened into passion on his part. In the 
 spring of 1786 he learned that she was about to 
 become a mother. The news came to him like a 
 thunder-clap, and he did what he could to repair 
 the wrong by giving her a written acknowledge¬ 
 ment of marriage, a document recognized by Scotch 
 law as legalizing their union. But Mr. Armour, 
 who was a respectable mason, was so indignant at 
 the idea of his daughter’s relations with a man 
 like Burns that he got hold of the writing and 
 destroyed it. Burns himself felt driven to the 
 verge of insanity by the turn affairs had taken, 
 ,and his troubles culminated when the Armours 
 let loose the terrors of the law against him and 
 he was obliged to skulk from the house of one 
 friend to another. He felt that it was better for 
 him to leave the country, and accordingly he ar- 
 
22 
 
 BURNS 
 
 ranged with Dr. Douglas to act as bookkeeper on 
 his estate in Jamaica. As he did not have the 
 necessary nine pounds to pay his steerage passage 
 out there, it was suggested to him that he publish 
 a subscription edition of his poems to raise the 
 amount. So the irrtrnortal poems were published 
 to raise nine pounds to carry the poet into exile! 
 
 Jean Armour’s desertion of him, coming on the 
 heels of the failure of his farming, plunged Burns 
 into a despair that he has chronicled in his poem 
 The Lament, beginning. 
 
 Oh, thou pale orb, that silent shines. 
 
 While care-untroubled mortals sleep! 
 
 Thou seest a wretch who inly pines. 
 
 And wanders here to wail and weep! 
 
 Highland Mary. 
 
 But in this extremity of his desperation there ap¬ 
 peared to comfort him a girl who inspired his 
 tenderest, purest, and most exquisite love songs. It 
 is certainly strange that this pure white flower of 
 affection should have appeared as it were an inter¬ 
 lude between the first and second acts of his rela¬ 
 tions with Jean Armour, who was to become his 
 wife. How Burns made the acquaintance with Mary 
 Campbell, his Highland Mary, we do not know, and 
 indeed very little is known of the whole affair out¬ 
 side his poems. She was maid-servant in the family 
 of his friend, Mr. Hamilton, whither she had come 
 from Argyllshire. On the second Sunday of May, 
 1786, (the month following the scenes with Jean 
 Armour) they met on the banks of the River Ayr 
 
LIFE 
 
 23 
 
 to spend one day of parting love, and standing on 
 either side of a small brook, they dipped their hands 
 in the stream (according to the old Scottish custom), 
 and holding a Bible between them, vowed eternal 
 fidelity to one another. The Bible which Burns gave 
 her that day has been found. It is in two volumes, 
 and in the first volume in Burns’s handwriting is en- 
 scribed “And ye shall not swear by My Name falsely, 
 I am the Lord”; in the other, “Thou shalt not fore¬ 
 swear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord 
 thine oath.” The names of Mary Campbell and 
 Robert Burns which were originally inscribed in 
 the Bible have been almost obliterated. Strange as 
 it may seem. Burns never mentioned the name of 
 Mary Campbell to any member of his family, and 
 the month after their parting, in writing to a friend 
 about “poor, ill-advised Armour,” he remarked that 
 “to confess a truth between you and me, I do still 
 love her to distraction after all, though I won’t tell 
 her so if I were to see her.” However, Burns and 
 Mary never met again. She was going home to pre¬ 
 pare for her wedding with him, but in October of 
 the same year she came from Argyllshire as far as 
 Greenock, where she was attacked by a fever and 
 died. When Burns received the letter telling of 
 her death he was at Mossgiel. He went to the 
 window to read the letter, and the family noticed 
 that on a sudden his face changed. He went out 
 without speaking, and they never questioned him. 
 But three years afterward he wrote that most 
 beautiful of his poems in English, To Mary in 
 Heaven —a testimony to the lasting quality of his 
 
24 
 
 BURNS 
 
 love. Some writers, however, do not take this love 
 of Mary so seriously. Burns ever thought most 
 tenderly and purely of what he couldn’t get, and the 
 Highland Mary of his poems may be after all only 
 the idealized vision of his heart, which materialized 
 itself about Mary Campbell chiefly because she died. 
 Poets are ever wont to be more tender with their 
 memories than with their realities. 
 
 His Poems Are Published. 
 
 Burns went to Kilmarnock in the fall to escape 
 being compelled to support his twin children, and 
 there read the proof of the first edition of his 
 poems. Some six hundred copies were printed, 
 half of which were subscribed for in advance. The 
 book made a sensation, and the other half of the edi¬ 
 tion was quickly sold. Burns cleared twenty pounds, 
 and because of the success postponed his journey to 
 Jamaica. Dr. Thomas Blacklock wrote a letter full 
 of admiration of the author’s ability, and the poems 
 were reviewed in the Edinburgh Magazine for Octo¬ 
 ber. “"A second edition was called for, and friends 
 urged Burns to go to Edinburgh to publish it. 
 
 The journey was a sort of triumphal progress. 
 Burns rode on a borrowed pony, and was enter¬ 
 tained by friends on the way. The first stop was 
 made at the farm of a Mr. Prentice, whose son in 
 a letter describes the occasion; “All the farmers 
 in the parish had read the poet’s then published 
 works, and were anxious to see him. They were all 
 asked to meet him at a late dinner, and the signal 
 of his arrival was to be a white sheet attached to 
 
LIFE 
 
 25 
 
 a pitchfork, and put on the top of a cornstack in 
 the barnyard. The parish is a beautiful amphithe¬ 
 atre, with the Clyde winding through it. . . . My 
 father’s stack, lying in the centre, was seen from 
 every house in the parish. At length Burns arrived, 
 mounted on a borrowed pownie. Instantly was the 
 white flag hoisted, and as instantly were seen the 
 farmers issuing from their houses, and converging 
 to the point of meeting. A glorious evening, or 
 rather night, which borrowed something from the 
 morning, followed, and the conversation of the poet 
 confirmed and increased the admiration created by 
 his writings.” And this is but a sample of the way 
 in which he was received wherever he went. 
 
 A Hero in Edinburgh. 
 
 On reaching Edinburgh Burns sought out a 
 Mauchline friend, named John Richmond, and dur¬ 
 ing the whole of that gay winter shared this lad’s 
 garret, for which they paid three shillings a week. 
 Of course Burns came with no social introductions, 
 but he soon found friends. A Mr. Dalrymple, whom 
 he had met in Ayrshire, introduced him to Lord 
 Glencairn, who became one of Burns’ most faithful 
 friends, and on December 9th Henry Mackenzie, 
 “The Man of Feeling,” appeared with an article in 
 the Lounger, which hailed Burns as an original poet, 
 bearing the stamp of true genius, and he urged his 
 countrymen to repair the wrongs which suffering 
 and neglect had inflicted on the great national poet 
 who had arisen among them. Within a month Burns 
 was a welcome guest at the table of the leading lit- 
 
26 
 
 BURNS 
 
 erary and social lights of Edinburgh, caressed by 
 duchesses, smiled on by lords, and sought by literary 
 men, judges, and professors. Sir Walter Scott says, 
 “I was a lad of fifteen when Burns came to Edin¬ 
 burgh, but had sense enough to be interested in his 
 poetry, and would have given the world to know 
 him. I saw him one day with several gentlemen of 
 literary reputation, among them I remember the 
 celebrated Dugald Stewart. . . . His person was 
 
 robust, his manners rustic, not clownish. . . . 
 
 His countenance was more massive than it looks in 
 any of his portraits. There was a strong expres¬ 
 sion of shrewdness in his lineaments, the eye alone 
 indicating the poetic character and temperament. It 
 was large and of a dark cast, and literally glowed 
 when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never 
 saw such another eye in any human head. His 
 conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, with¬ 
 out the least intrusive forwardness. I thought his 
 acquaintance with English poetry was rather limited, 
 and having twenty times the ability of Allan Ram¬ 
 say and of Ferguson he talked of them with too 
 much humility as his models. He was much 
 caressed in Edinburgh, but the efforts made for 
 his relief were extremely trifling.” 
 
 Burns was known as “the Ploughman Poet,” and 
 was treated as a sort of prodigy. He himself rec¬ 
 ognized the hollowness of it all, and declared he 
 had a living at the plough tail, and indeed never 
 seems to have thought of becoming a regular lit¬ 
 erary worker in Edinburgh. 
 
 Creech, then the leading publisher of Edinburgh, 
 
LIFE 
 
 27 
 
 brought out the second edition of his poems, under 
 the patronage of a fashionable association, known 
 as the Caledonian Hunt, and one nobleman sub¬ 
 scribed for as many as forty-two copies. In all 
 Burns realized nearly five hundred pounds (twenty- 
 five hundred dollars), though it was more than a 
 year before he got a settlement. 
 
 While he was dining with duchesses, he was often 
 spending his nights with a less refined class at tav¬ 
 erns. At that time tavern life was in the ascendant 
 in Scotland, and gathered what we moderns call the 
 “true Bohemians.” Undoubtedly Burns liked Bo¬ 
 hemia better than he did fashionable society, and in 
 this many today will sympathize with him. His de¬ 
 sire seems to have been to get a farm and settle 
 down, and he was soon making inquiries in this 
 direction. 
 
 The Return to Mossgiel. 
 
 The following spring he left Edinburgh, and after 
 a pleasure trip to various Scottish scenes he had 
 long been familiar with in song and ballad and 
 wished to see, he returned to Mossgiel. The Armour 
 family, who the year before had threatened him with 
 the law, was now all smiles. “If anything had been 
 wanting to disgust me completely with the Armour 
 family, their mean, servile compliance would have 
 done it.” A proud spirit that had rankled under 
 the surface in Edinburgh, seems to have been not 
 less bitter in Ayrshire, and he wrote to a friend, “I 
 never, my friends, thought mankind very capable 
 of anything generous, but the stateliness of the patri- 
 
28 
 
 BURNS 
 
 cians in Edinburgh, and the civility of my plebeian 
 brethren (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance) 
 since I returned home, have nearly put me out of 
 conceit altogether with my species. I have bought 
 a pocket copy of Milton, which I carry perpetually 
 about with me in order to study the sentiments, 
 the dauntless magnanimity, the intrepid, unyield¬ 
 ing independence, the desperate daring, and noble 
 defiance of hardship, in that gro'at personage, 
 Satan.” He met Jean Armour accidentally, and 
 their affectionate intimacy was renewed, as if no 
 break between them had ever occurred. At the 
 end of June he made another journey, this time 
 to the Highlands. In a letter describing some 
 “high jinks” in the north, he says, “I have yet 
 fixed on nothing with respect to the serious busi¬ 
 ness of life. I am, as usual, a rhyming, mason¬ 
 making, raking, aimless, idle fellow. However, I shall 
 somewhere have a farm soon.” 
 
 He returned to Edinburgh to see his publisher 
 about getting a settlement, after which he set out 
 on another pleasure trip to the north, among other 
 places visiting Bannockburn. 
 
 Noble Friends Grow Cold. 
 
 The following winter was spent in Edinburgh, 
 apparently in an effort to get a long-delayed set¬ 
 tlement with Creech. The second winter in Ed¬ 
 inburgh was very different from the first. The 
 noble lords who had been so eager to welcome, 
 now barely nodded as they passed the poet on the 
 street, and the dinner invitations from duchesses 
 
LIFE 
 
 29 
 
 and legal lights did not arrive. The Ploughman 
 Poet had been a fad, and the fad had run its day. 
 Burns did not care, apparently, but plunged into 
 his last historic love passion. He had made the 
 acquaintance of two young ladies in Edinburgh of 
 whom he was fond. Miss Chalmers and Miss Ham¬ 
 ilton, and wrote poems to both, but while they 
 welcomed his friendship, they did not encourage 
 any love-making, and both were married not long 
 after. He was introduced, however, to a Mrs. 
 M’Lehose, who had been deserted by her husband 
 and left to provide for her children as best she 
 could. Before Burns was able to call upon her he 
 was upset by a drunken coachman, so that he was 
 confined to his room for several weeks with an 
 injured knee. He wrote the lady a note of apology, 
 she responded with expressions of warm sympathy 
 and friendship, and Burns was only too ready to 
 plunge into a most impassioned correispondence. 
 We are told that this lady was “of a somewhat 
 voluptuous style of beauty, of lively and easy man¬ 
 ners, of a poetical fabric of mind, with some wit 
 and not too high a degree of refinement or delicacy, 
 exactly the kind of woman to fascinate Burns.” On 
 December 30th he wrote, “Almighty love still reigns 
 and revels in my bosom, and I am at this moment 
 ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow, 
 who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal 
 than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian bandit, 
 or the poison arrow of the savage African.” They 
 called each other Clarinda and Sylvander, and their 
 letters have been preserved and published. The 
 
30 
 
 BURNS 
 
 lady seems to have thought seriously of a union 
 with Burns when Mr. M’Lehose had been dis¬ 
 posed of, but the bombastic style in which Burns 
 wrote seems incompatible with anything more on 
 his part than a desire to indulge his passion. The 
 excitement of the affair was like an intoxicant to 
 him, and gave him the relief from his troubles 
 that drink did. Again and again he vowed eternal 
 love and fidelity, but a few weeks later when he 
 learned that Jean Armour was once more in 
 trouble and had been turned out of doors by her 
 father, he returned to Mossgiel and married her. 
 The correspondence with Clarinda languished and 
 very soon came to an end. 
 
 He Becomes an Excise Man. 
 
 Of the five hundred pounds Burns received from 
 Creech, he had doubtless spent one hundred in 
 Edinburgh, nearly two hundred more he gave to 
 his brother who was in straits (presumably as his 
 provision for their mother), and with the other 
 two hundred he made a home for himself and his 
 Jean on a farm he had rented at Ellisland. The 
 farm was a very beautiful spot, but Burns had 
 made “a poet’s, not a farmer’s, choice,” for the 
 soil was hard and poor. The only favor he got 
 from his Edinburgh friends was having his name 
 put on the Excise list. 
 
 He had to build a house on the new farm and 
 furnish it before he could bring his wife and 
 children there, and he very soon found it ad¬ 
 visable to take his excise appointment, which added 
 
LIFE 
 
 .^1 
 
 fifty pounds a year to his income. At first he 
 seems to have been very happy, as we may judge 
 from his song, “I hae a wife o’ my ain.” Jean 
 was a patient, devoted, faithful wife to him, and 
 in the nearly forty years she lived after his death 
 cherished and revered his memory to the last. He 
 had friends, too, in whom he took pleasure, such 
 as Mrs. Dunlop, who on seeing a copy of his first 
 edition had sent a messenger to Mossgiel with an 
 order for six more, so inaugurating an acquaint¬ 
 ance which Burns cherished to the end, and Mrs. 
 Riddell, who, with her husband, continued his friend 
 and agreeable companion except for one temporary 
 break. 
 
 During these years his one comfort and pleasure 
 was writing songs. In Edinburgh he had made 
 the acquaintance of James Johnson, who was mak¬ 
 ing a collection of Scottish songs and ballads, called 
 the Musical Museum, and to this Burns contributed 
 in all one hundred and eighty-four songs, some 
 original, many altered or with a stanza or two 
 added, others merely collected. 
 
 In a couple of years he had sunk all his money 
 in the farm at Ellisland, and was compelled to sell 
 up his crops and depend henceforth on his salary 
 as exciseman. This was increased to seventy 
 pounds, and he moved to Dumfries, a third-rate 
 Scottish town, where in miserable surroundings he 
 spent the last four years of his life cut off from the 
 beauties and solace of the picturesque country of 
 which he was so fond. His health began to fail, 
 hope for the future had been taken from him, and 
 
32 
 
 BURNS 
 
 he spent these last years in a tragical struggle for 
 food for himself and his family. Just before he 
 died he sent passionate appeals to two of his friends 
 for small sums to keep him out of jail. No doubt 
 when he could he drowned his woes in liquor, as 
 in other years he had solaced himself with too 
 passionate love-making. But our pity must over¬ 
 come our condemnation. 
 
 The Solace of Song Writing. 
 
 Soon after he went to Dumfries Mr. George 
 Thomson wrote him a letter about a new collec¬ 
 tion of Scottish melodies, airs, and words which 
 a band of musical amateurs at Edinburgh was 
 contemplating. It was to be a more carefully se¬ 
 lected gathering than that of the Museum, edited 
 with more rigid care, and to be supplied with sym¬ 
 phonies and accompaniments from the first mu¬ 
 sicians of Europe. In answer Burns wrote, “As 
 the request you make to me will positively add to 
 my enjoyment in complying with it, I shall enter 
 into your undertaking, with all the srhall portion 
 of abilities I have, strained to their utmost exertion 
 by the impulse of enthusiasm. As to remuneration, 
 you may think my songs either above or below 
 price; for they shall be absolutely the one or the 
 other. In the honest enthusiasm in which I em¬ 
 bark in your undertaking, to talk of money, wages, 
 fee, hire, etc., would be downright prostitution of 
 soul.” Thomson was not at all rich, and never got 
 much out of his collection beyond a return of the 
 large sums he had to pay out. Once he sent Burns 
 
LIFE 
 
 33 
 
 a small sum, but the poet replied, “I assure you, 
 my dear sir, that you truly hurt me with your 
 pecuniary parcel. It degrades me in my own eyes. 
 However, to return it would savour of affectation; 
 but, as to any more traffic of that debtor and 
 creditor kind, I swear, by that honour which crowns 
 the upright statue of Robert Burns’s Integrity, on 
 the least motion of it I will indignantly spurn the 
 by-pact transaction, and from that moment com¬ 
 mence entire stranger to you.” The case with John¬ 
 son had been much the same. But just before his 
 death Burns appealed to Thomson for five pounds 
 and got it by return of post. Practically all the 
 writings of this period were songs, except Tam 
 o’ Shanter, which was dashed off in a single sum¬ 
 mer’s day. 
 
 Death. 
 
 In the early summer of 1796 Mrs. Burns was 
 about to be confined with a child actually born 
 after its father’s death, and the sister of a neigh¬ 
 bor, Miss Jessie Lewars, cared for the poet in his 
 last days. To her he wrote two songs, one among 
 the most beautiful of his composition. He died 
 ^uly 21, 1796, and as he was being buried with all 
 the honor the neighborhood was capable of mus¬ 
 tering his wife gave birth to a posthumous son, 
 who, however, did not live long. His grave was 
 unmarked for some years, when his wife put up 
 a simple stone. Twenty-one years later a some¬ 
 what pretentious mausoleum was erected by public 
 subscription, and stands to this day, visited, each 
 
34 BURNS 
 
 year by many pilgrims to the grave of Robert 
 Burns. 
 
 No more truthful inscription could have been 
 chiselled on his tomb than his own “Bard’s Epi¬ 
 taph,” written ten years before: 
 
 The poor inhabitant below 
 
 Was quick to learn and wise to know, 
 
 ' And keenly felt the friendly glow 
 And softer flame; 
 
 But thoughtless folly laid him low 
 And stained his name. 
 
 Reader, attend ! whether thy soul 
 
 Soars fancy’s flight beyond the pole. 
 
 Or darkling grubs this earthly hole. 
 
 In low pursuit; 
 
 Know, prudent, cautious self-control 
 Is wisdom’s root. 
 
 As a poet he “interpreted the lives, thoughts, 
 feelings, manners of the Scottish peasantry to whom 
 he belonged. ... He not only sympathized 
 with the wants, the trials, the joys and sorrows of 
 their obscure lot, but he interpreted these to them¬ 
 selves, and interpreted, them to others, and this, 
 too, in their own language, made musical and glori¬ 
 fied by genius. ... In looking up to him the 
 Scottish people have seen an impersonation of them¬ 
 selves on a large scale—of themselves, both in their 
 virtues and in their vices.” And these virtues and 
 vices have turned out to be in good part the vir- 
 
LIFE 
 
 35 
 
 tues and vices of all mankind. He is so great 
 because of his simple sincerity and truth, and as 
 Wordsworth sang, teaches us— 
 
 How verse may build a princely throne 
 On humble truth. 
 
The preface to the Kilmarnock edition of Burns’s 
 poems begins, “The following trifles are not the 
 production of the poet who, with all the advan¬ 
 tages of learned art, and perhaps amid the ele¬ 
 gance and idlenesses of upper life, looks down for 
 a rural theme, with an eye to Theocritus or Virgil. 
 To the author of this, these and other celebrated 
 names, their countrymen, are, in their original lan¬ 
 guage, a fountain shut up and a book sealed. Unac¬ 
 quainted with the necessary requisites 'oi beginning 
 poet by rule, he sings the sentiments and manners 
 he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers 
 around him. in his and their native language.’’ 
 
 Note. —The spelling and style of the original editions 
 (not always consistent) have been followed so far as 
 possible in this edition of Burns. 
 
 36 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 MY NANIE, O. 
 
 Written when Burns was seventeen or eighteen, 
 and according to his brother Gilbert addressed to 
 Agnes Fleming, the daughter of a farmer in Tar- 
 bolton parish, after the Burnses moved to Lochlea. 
 
 Behind yon hills where Stinchar flows, 
 
 ’Mang moors an’ mosses many, O, 
 
 The wintry sun the day has clos’d. 
 
 And I’ll awa’ to Nanie, O. 
 
 The westlin wind blaws loud an’ shrill; 
 
 The night’s baith mirk and rainy, O: 
 
 But I’ll get my plaid, an’ out I’ll steal. 
 
 An’ owre the hill to Nanie, O. 
 
 My Nanie’s charming, sweet, an’ young: 
 
 Nae artfu’ wiles to win ye, O; 
 
 May ill befa’ the flattering tongue 
 That wad beguile my Nanie, O. 
 
 Her face is fair, her heart is true. 
 
 As spotless as she’s bonie, O: 
 
 The op’ning gowan, wat wi’ dew, 
 
 Nae purer is than Nanie, O. 
 
 A country lad is my degree. 
 
 An’ few there be that ken me, O; 
 
 But what care I how few they be, 
 
 I’m welcome aye to Nanie, O. 
 
 37 
 
38 
 
 BURNS 
 
 My riches a’s my penny-fee, 
 
 An’ I maun guide it cannie, O; 
 
 But warl’s gear ne’er troubles me, 
 
 My thoughts are a’, my Nanie, O. 
 
 Our auld Guidman delights to view 
 His -sheep an’ kye thrive bonie, O; 
 
 But I’m as blythe that bauds his pleugh. 
 
 An’ has nae care but Nanie, O. 
 
 Come weel, come woe, I care na by. 
 
 I’ll tak what Heav’n will send me, O; 
 
 Nae ither care in life have I, 
 
 But live, an’ love my Nanie, O. 
 
 ON CESSNOCK BANKS. 
 
 Addressed (1781) to Ellison Begbie, the girl who 
 refused to listen to Burns’s love-making. 
 
 On Cessnock banks a lassie dwells; 
 
 Could I describe her shape and mien^; 
 
 Our lassies a’ she far excels, 
 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
 She’s sweeter than the morning dawn 
 When rising Phoebus first is seen, 
 
 And dew-drops twinkle o’er the lawn; 
 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
 She’s stately like yon youthful ash 
 That grows the cowslips braes between. 
 
 And drinks the stream with vigour fresh; 
 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 39 
 
 She’s spotless like the flow’ring thorn 
 With flow’rs so white and leaves so green, 
 When purest in the dewy morn; 
 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
 Her looks are like the vernal May, 
 
 When ev’ning Phoebus shines serene. 
 While birds rejoice on every spray; 
 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
 Her hair is like the curling mist 
 That climbs the mountain-sides at e’en, 
 When flow’r-reviving rains are past; 
 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
 Her forehead’s like the show’ry bow. 
 
 When gleaming sunbeams intervene 
 And gild the distant mountain’s brow; 
 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
 Her cheeks are like yon crimson gem. 
 
 The pride of all the flowery scene. 
 
 Just opening on its thorny stem; 
 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
 Her teeth are like the aightly snow 
 When pale the morning rises keen. 
 
 While hid the murmuring streamlets flow; 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish e^. 
 
 Her lips are like yon cherries ripe. 
 
 That sunny walls from Boreas screen; 
 They tempt the taste and charm the sight; 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
40 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Her teeth are like a flock of sheep, 
 
 With fleeces newly washen clean, 
 
 That slowly mount the rising steep: 
 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
 Her breath is like the fragrant breeze 
 That gently stirs the blossom’d bean. 
 
 When Phoebus sinks beneath the seas; 
 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
 Her voice is like the ev’ning thrush 
 That sings on Cessnock banks unseen, 
 
 While his mate sits nestling in the bush; 
 
 An’ she has twa sparkling rogueish een. 
 
 But it’s not her air, her form, her face, 
 
 Tho’ matching beauty’s fabled queen, 
 
 ’Tis the mind that shines in ev’ry grace. 
 
 An’ chiefly in her rogueish een. 
 
 MARY MORISON. 
 
 This song, written probably two years later, when 
 Burns was twenty-five, is thought also to have been 
 addressed to Ellison Begbie, and is his first song 
 of really surpassing merit. 
 
 O Mary, at thy window be. 
 
 It is the wish’d, the trysted hour! 
 
 Those smiles and glances let me see. 
 
 That make the miser’s treasure poorj^ 
 
 How blythely wad I bide the stoure, 
 
 A weary slave frae sun to sun; 
 
 Could I the rich reward secure. 
 
 The lovely Mary Morison. 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 41 
 
 Yestreen, when to the trembling string 
 The dance gaed thro’ the lighted ha’, 
 
 To thee my fancy took its wing, 
 
 I sat, but neither heard or saw: 
 
 Tho’ this was fair, and that was braw. 
 
 And yon the toast of a’ the town, 
 
 I sigh’d, and said amang them a’, 
 
 ‘Ye are na Mary Morison.’ 
 
 O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, 
 
 Wha for thy sake wad gladly die? 
 
 Or canst thou break that heart of his, 
 
 Whase only faut is loving thee? 
 
 If love for love thou wilt nae gie, 
 
 At least be pity to me shown! 
 
 A thought ungentle canna be 
 The thought o’ Mary Morison. 
 
 NOW WESTLIN WINDS. 
 
 Commemorating the love affair with Margaret 
 Thomson, which ended the study of mensuration at 
 Kirkoswald several years before. 
 
 Now westlin winds and slaught’ring guns 
 Bring autumn’s pleasant weather; 
 
 The moorcock springs, on whirring wings, 
 Amang the blooming heather: 
 
 Now waving grain, wide o’er the plain. 
 Delights the weary farmer; 
 
 And the moon shines bright, when I rove at 
 night 
 
 To muse upon my charmer. 
 
42 
 
 BURNS 
 
 The partridge loves the fruitful fells; 
 The plover loves the mountains; 
 
 The woodcock haunts the lonely dells; 
 The soaring hern the fountains: 
 
 Thro’ lofty groves the cushat roves, 
 The path o’ man to shun it; 
 
 The hazel bush o’erhangs the thrush, 
 The spreading thorn the linnet. 
 
 Thus ev’ry kind their pleasure find. 
 
 The savage and the tender; 
 
 Some social join, and leagues combine. 
 Some solitarj^ wander: 
 
 Avaunt, away, the cruel sway! 
 
 Tyrannic man’s dominion! 
 
 The sportsman’s joy, the murd’ring cry. 
 The fluct’ring, gory pinion! 
 
 But, Peggy dear, the evening’s clear. 
 Thick flies the skimming swallow. 
 
 The sky is blue, the fields in view 
 All fading-green and yellow: 
 
 Come let us stray our gladsome way. 
 And view the charms of nature; 
 
 The rustling corn, the fruited thorn. 
 And ilka happy creature. 
 
 We’ll gently walk, and sweetly talk. 
 While the silent moon shines clearly; 
 
 I’ll clasp thy waist, and, fondly prest. 
 Swear how I lo’e thee dearly: 
 
 Not vernal show’rs to budding flow’rs. 
 Not Autumn to the farmer. 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 43 
 
 So dear can be as thou to me, 
 
 My fair, my lovely charmer! 
 
 GREEN GROW THE RASHES, O. 
 
 There’s nought but care on ev’ry han’, 
 
 In ev’ry hour that passes, O: 
 
 What signifies the life o’ man. 
 
 An’ ’t were na for the lasses, O. 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Green grow the rashes, O; 
 
 Green grow the rashes, O; 
 
 The sweetest hours that e’er I spend. 
 
 Are spent among the lasses, O. 
 
 The war’ly race may riches chase. 
 
 An’ riches still may fly them, O; 
 
 An’ tho’ at last they catch them fast. 
 Their hearts can ne’er enjoy them, O. 
 
 But gie me a cannie hour at e’en. 
 
 My arms about my dearie, O, 
 
 An’ war’ly cares an’ war’ly men 
 May a’ gae tapsalteerie. Oh! 
 
 For you sae douce, ye sneer at this; 
 
 Ye’re nought but senseless asses, O: 
 The wisest man the warl’ e’er saw. 
 
 He dearly lov’d the lasses, O. 
 
 Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears 
 Her noblest work she classes, O: 
 
 Her prentice han’ she try’d on man, 
 
 An’ then she made the lasses, O. 
 
44 
 
 BURNS 
 
 THE LAMENT 
 
 OCCASIONED BY THE UNFORTUNATE ISSUE OF A FRIEND’S 
 
 AMOUR. 
 
 Written on hearing of the first trouble of Jean 
 Armour. Though hardly a song, it is an item in 
 Burns’s love hist''’'y. 
 
 Alas! how oft does Goodness wound itself, 
 
 And sweet Affection prove the spring of woe! 
 
 Home. 
 
 O thou pale Orb, that silent shines. 
 
 While care-untroubled mortals sleep! 
 
 Thou seest a wretch that inly pines. 
 
 And wanders here to wail and weep! 
 
 With woe I nightly vigils keep. 
 
 Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam; 
 
 And mourn, in lamentation deep. 
 
 How life and love are all a dream. 
 
 I joyless view thy rays adorn 
 
 The faintly-marked, distant hill; 
 
 I joyless view thy trembling horn. 
 
 Reflected in the gurgling rill: 
 
 My fondly-fluttering heart, be still! 
 
 Thou busy pow’r. Remembrance, cease! 
 
 Ah! must the agonizing thrill 
 For ever bar returning peace! 
 
 No idly-feign’d poetic pains. 
 
 My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim; 
 
 No shepherd’s pipe—Arcadian strains; 
 
 No fabled tortures, quaint and tame: 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 45 
 
 The plighted faith; the mutual flame; 
 
 The oft attested Pow’rs above; 
 
 The promis’d father’s tender name: 
 
 These were the pledges of my love! 
 
 Encircled in her clasping arms, 
 
 How have the raptur’d moments flown! 
 How have I wish’d for fortune’s charms. 
 For her dear sake, and hers alone! 
 
 And must I think it! is she gone. 
 
 My secret heart’s exulting boast? 
 
 And does she heedless hear my groan? 
 
 And is she ever, ever lost? 
 
 Oh! can she bear so base a heart. 
 
 So lost to honour, lost to truth. 
 
 As from the fondest lover part. 
 
 The plighted husband of her youth! 
 
 Alas! life’s path may be unsmooth! 
 
 Her way may lie thro’ rough distress! 
 Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe. 
 Her sor’-ows share, and make them less? 
 
 Ye winged hours that o’er us past. 
 Enraptur’d more, the more enjoy’d. 
 
 Your dear remembrance in my breast. 
 
 My fondly-treasur’d thoughts employ’d. 
 That breast, how dreary now, and void. 
 For her too scanty once of room! 
 
 Ev’n ev’ry ray of hope destroy’d. 
 
 And not a wish to gild the gloom! 
 
 The morn that warns th’ approaching day. 
 Awakes me up to toil and woe: 
 
46 
 
 BURNS 
 
 I see the hours in long array, 
 
 That I must suffer, lingering, slow. 
 
 Full many a pang, and many a throe. 
 
 Keen recollection’s direful train. 
 
 Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low, 
 
 Shall kiss the distant, western main. 
 
 And when my nightly couch I try, 
 Sore-harass’d out with care and grief. 
 
 My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye. 
 
 Keep watchings with the nightly thief: 
 
 Or if I slumber. Fancy, chief. 
 
 Reigns, haggard-wild, in sore affright: 
 
 Ev’n day, all-bitter, brings relief. 
 
 From such a horror-breathing night. 
 
 0! thou bright Queen, who o’er th’ expanse 
 Now highest reign’st, with boundless sway! 
 
 Oft has thy silent-marking glance 
 Observ’d us, fondly wand’ring, stray! 
 
 The time, unheeded, sped away. 
 
 While love’s luxurious pulse beat high. 
 
 Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray, ^ 
 
 To mark the mutual-kindling eye. 
 
 Oh! scenes in strong remembrance set! 
 Scenes, never, never to return! 
 
 Scenes, if in stupor I forget. 
 
 Again I feel, again I burn! 
 
 From ,ev’ry joy and pleasure torn. 
 
 Life’s weary vale Fll wander thro’; 
 
 And hopeless, comfortless. I’ll mourn 
 A faithless woman’s broken vow. 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 47 
 
 FLOW GENTLY, SWEET AFTON. 
 
 This is the first of the poems to Mary Campbell, 
 or Highland Mary,” composed probably when he 
 first began to think of her after the Armours had 
 thrown him off, in the spring of 1786. 
 
 Flow gently. Sweet Afton, among thy green braes! 
 Flow gently. I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise! 
 
 My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream— 
 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream! 
 
 Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds thro’ the glen, 
 Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den. 
 
 Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear— 
 I charge you, disturb not my slumbering fair! 
 
 How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills. 
 
 Far mark d with the courses of clear, winding rills! 
 There daily I wander, as noon rises high. 
 
 My flocks and my Mary’s sweet cot in my eye. 
 
 How pleasant thy banks and green vallies below. 
 Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow 
 There oft, as mild Ev’ning weeps over the lea. 
 
 The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. 
 
 Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides. 
 
 And winds by the cot where my Mary resides! 
 
 How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave. 
 
 As, gathering sweet flowerets, she stems thy clear 
 wave! 
 
48 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green btaes! 
 Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays! 
 
 My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring Stream- 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream 1 
 
 THE HIGHLAND LASSIE. 
 
 This song was apparently written soon after the 
 last, when Burns was planning to go to Jamaica. 
 
 Nae gentle dames, tho’ e’er sae fair. 
 
 Shall ever be my Muse’s care; 
 
 Their titles a’ are empty show; 
 
 Gie me my Highland lassie, O. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Within the glen sae bushy, O, 
 
 Aboon the plain sae rushy, O, 
 
 I set me down wi’ right good will 
 To sing my Highland lassie, O. 
 
 Oh, were yon hills and valleys mine, ' 
 
 Yon palace and yon gardens fine! 
 
 The world then the love should know 
 I bear my Highland lassie, O. 
 
 Within the glen, &c. 
 
 But fickle fortune frowns on me. 
 
 And I maun cross the raging sea; 
 
 But while my crimson currents flow 
 I’ll love my Highland lassie, O. 
 
 Within the glen, &c. 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 49 
 
 Altho’ thro’ foreign climes I range, 
 
 I know her heart will never change, 
 
 For her bosom burns with honour’s glow. 
 
 My faithful Highland lassie, O. 
 
 Within the glen, &c. 
 
 For her I’ll dare the billow’s roar. 
 
 For her I’ll trace a distant shore, 
 
 That Indian wealth may lustre throw 
 Around my Highland lassie, O. 
 
 Within the glen, &c. 
 
 She has my heart, she has my hand. 
 
 By sacred truth and honour’s band! 
 
 Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low, 
 
 I’m thine, my Highland lassie, O. 
 
 Fareweel the glen sae bushy, O! 
 
 Fareweel the plain sae rushy, O! 
 
 To other lands I now must go, 
 
 To sing my Highland lassie, O! 
 
 A PRAYER FOR MARY. 
 
 This was found among his papers after his death. 
 
 Powers celestial! whose protection 
 Ever guards the virtuous fair. 
 
 While in distant climes I wander. 
 
 Let my Mary be your care: 
 
 Let her form so fair and faultless— 
 
 Fair and faultless as your own— 
 
 Let my Mary’s kindred spirit 
 Draw your choicest influence down! 
 
60 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Make the gales you waft around her 
 Soft and peaceful as her breast; 
 
 Breathing in the breeze that fans her, 
 
 Soothe her bosom into rest: 
 
 Guardian angels! O protect her, 
 
 When in distant lands I roam; 
 
 To realms unknown while fate exiles me. 
 
 Make her bosom still my home! 
 
 WILL YE GO TO THE INDIES, MY MARY? 
 
 Burns told Mr. Thomson in 1792, “In my very 
 early years, when I was thinking of going to the 
 West Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear 
 girl.” 
 
 Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 
 
 And leave auld Scotia’s shore? 
 
 Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 
 
 Across th’ Atlantic roar? 
 
 O, sweet grows the lime and the orange. 
 
 And the apple on the pine; 
 
 But a’ the charms o’ the Indies 
 Can never equal thine. 
 
 I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary, 
 
 I hae sworn by the Heavens to be true. 
 
 And sae may the Heavens forget me. 
 
 When I forget my vow! 
 
 O, plight me your faith, my Mary, 
 
 And plight me your lily-white hand! 
 
 O, plight me your faith, my Mary, 
 
 Before I leave Scotia’s strand! 
 
LOVE SONGS 51 
 
 We hae plighted our troth, my Mary, 
 
 In mutual affection to join; 
 
 And curst be the cause that shall part us! 
 
 The hour and the moment o’ time! 
 
 THO’ CRUEL FATE. 
 
 These lines, found in Burns’s commonplace book, 
 refer to Jean Armour, and were doubtless written 
 at this period, when he was thinking more of Jean 
 than of Mary. 
 
 Tho’ cruel fate should bid us part 
 Far as the pole and line. 
 
 Her dear idea round my heart 
 Should tenderly entwine. 
 
 Tho’ mountains rise, and deserts howl, 
 
 And oceans roar between. 
 
 Yet dearer than my deathless soul 
 I still would love my Jean. 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF 
 
 OF A COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION [oF HIS POEMS] 
 PRESENTED TO AN OLD SWEETHEART, 
 
 THEN MARRIED. 
 
 / 
 
 ^ Dr. Currie says this was Mrs. Neilson, the Peg¬ 
 gie Thomson of Kirkoswald. 
 
 Once fondly lov’d, and still remember’d dear. 
 Sweet early object of my youthful vows. 
 
 Accept this mark of friendship, warm, sincere; 
 Friendship! ’tis all cold duty now allows. 
 
52 
 
 BURNS 
 
 And when you read the simple artless rhymes, 
 One friendly sigh for him, he asks no more. 
 Who distant burns in flaming torrid climes, 
 
 Or haply lies beneath th’ Atlantic roar. 
 
 BONIE BOON. 
 
 This is the first and best version of a song writ¬ 
 ten in January, 1787 , to Peggy K, a lively young 
 lady he had met at the house of a friend in Mauch- 
 line a year or two before. 
 
 Ye flowery banks o’ bonie Boon 
 How can ye blume sae fair! 
 
 How can ye chant, ye little birds. 
 
 And I sae fu’ o’ care. 
 
 Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird, 
 
 That sings upon the bough; 
 
 Thou minds me o’ the happy days. 
 
 When my fause luve was true. 
 
 Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird. 
 
 That sings beside thy mate; 
 
 For sae I sat, and sae I sang. 
 
 And wist na o’ my fate. 
 
 Aft hae I rov’d by bonie Boon, 
 
 To see the woodbine twine. 
 
 And ilka bird sang o’ its love, 
 
 And sae did I o’ mine. 
 
 Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose 
 Frae off its thorny tree; 
 
 And my fause luver staw the rose 
 But left the thorn wi’ me. 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 53 
 
 WHERE, BRAVING ANGRY WINTER’S 
 STORMS. 
 
 Addressed to Margaret Chalmers, one of the 
 young ladies he met early in his second winter in 
 Edinburgh, 1787 . 
 
 Where, braving angry winter’s storms, 
 
 The lofty Ochils rise. 
 
 Far in their shade my Peggys’ charms 
 First blest my wondering eyes: 
 
 As one who by some savage stream 
 A lonely gem surveys. 
 
 Astonish’d doubly, marks it beam 
 With art’s most polish’d blaze. 
 
 Blest be the wild, sequester’d glade. 
 
 And blest the day and hour. 
 
 Where Peggy’s charms I first survey’d. 
 
 When first I felt their pow’r! 
 
 The tyrant Death with grim control 
 May seize my fleeting breath. 
 
 But tearing Peggy from my soul 
 Must be a stronger death. 
 
 MY PEGGY’S FACE. 
 
 A second song to the same Miss Chalmers. 
 
 My Peggy’s face, my Peggy’s form. 
 
 The frost of hermit age might warm; 
 
 My Peggy’s worth, my Peggy’s mind. 
 
 Might charm the first of human kind. 
 
 I love my Peggy’s angel air. 
 
 Her face so truly, heavenly fair. 
 
54 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Her native grace so void of art; 
 
 But I adore my Peggy’s heart. 
 
 The lily’s hue, the rose’s dye, 
 
 The kindling lustre of an eye; 
 
 Who but owns their magic sway. 
 
 Who but knows they all decay! 
 
 The tender thrill, the pitying tear, 
 
 The generous purpose, nobly dear. 
 
 The gentle look that rage disarms, 
 
 These are all immortal charms. 
 
 BANKS OF DEVON. 
 
 This song was addressed to Charlotte Hamilton, 
 cousin of Margaret Chalmers. Which Burns liked 
 the better is a matter of dispute, but Miss Chalmers 
 told Thomas Campbell, the poet, that Burns made 
 a proposal of marriage to her. 
 
 How pleasant the banks of the clear-winding Devon, 
 With green-spreading bushes, and flowers bloom¬ 
 ing fair! 
 
 But the boniest flower on the banks of the Devon 
 Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr. 
 
 Mild be the sun on this sweet blushing flower. 
 
 In the gay rosy morn as it bathes in the dew! 
 
 And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower. 
 
 That steals on the evening each leaf to renew. 
 
 O, spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes. 
 
 With chill hoary wing as ye usher the dawn! 
 
 And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seizes 
 The verdure and pride of the garden and lawn! 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 55 
 
 Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded lilies. 
 
 And England triumphant display her proud rose; 
 A fairer than either adorns the green valleys 
 Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows. 
 
 I LOVE MY JEAN. 
 
 Burns was thirty when, in 1788, he decided to 
 accept Jean Armour as his wife and take her with 
 him to the farm at Ellisland. This song was writ¬ 
 ten at that time, and is one of his sweetest. 
 
 Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw, 
 
 I dearly like the west. 
 
 For there the bonie lassie lives, 
 
 The lassie I lo’e best: 
 
 There wild woods grow, and rivers row. 
 
 And monie a hill between; 
 
 But day and night my fancy’s flight 
 Is ever wi’ my Jean. 
 
 I see her in the dewy flowers, 
 
 I see her sweet and fair; 
 
 I hear her in the tunefu’ birds, 
 
 I hear her charm the air; 
 
 There’s not a bonie flower that springs 
 By fountain, shaw, or green; 
 
 There’s not a bonie bird that sings. 
 
 But minds me o’ my Jean. 
 
56 
 
 BURNS 
 
 I HAE A WIFE O’ MY AIN. 
 
 When he had installed Jean in the new home he 
 wrote the following, in imitation of an old ballad. 
 
 I hae a wife o’ my ain, 
 
 I’ll partake wi’ naebody: 
 
 I’ll take cuckold frae nane, 
 
 I’ll gie cuckold to naebody. 
 
 I hae a penny to spend, 
 
 There—thanks to naebody! 
 
 I hae naething to lend. 
 
 I’ll borrow frae naebody. 
 
 I am naebody’s lord. 
 
 I’ll be slave to naebody. 
 
 I hae a guid braid sword. 
 
 I’ll tak dunts frae naebody. 
 
 I’ll be merry and free. 
 
 I’ll be sad for naebody. 
 
 Naebody cares for me, 
 
 I care for naebody. 
 
 MY BONIE MARY. 
 
 Burns did not claim this song as his own, but 
 he afterward acknowledged that all but the first 
 four lines were his own, and even these first lines 
 were considerably changed. 
 
 Go fetch to me a pint o’ wine. 
 
 An’ fill it in a silver tassie; 
 
 That I may drink before I go, 
 
 A service to my bonie lassie. 
 
LOVE SONGS 57 
 
 The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith; 
 
 Fu’ loud the wind blaws frae the ferry; 
 
 The ship rides by the Berwick-law, 
 
 And I maun leave my bonie Mary. 
 
 The trumpets sound, the banners fly, 
 
 The glittering spears are rankM ready; 
 
 The shouts o’ war are heard afar. 
 
 The battle closes thick and bloody; 
 
 But it s no the roar o’ sea or shore 
 Wad mak me langer wish to tarry; 
 
 Nor shout o’ war that’s heard afar. 
 
 It’s leaving thee, my bonie Mary. 
 
 TO MARY IN HEAVEN. 
 
 Three years after tlie death of Mary Campbell, 
 one day at the end of the harvest. Burns was re¬ 
 minded of her. Mrs. Burns told Lockhart that 
 a.fter working all day in the harvest, “as the twi¬ 
 light deepened, he appeared to grow Very sad about 
 something,’ and at length wandered out in the 
 barnyard, to which his wife, in her anxiety, fol¬ 
 lowed him, entreating him in vain to observe that 
 frost had set in, and to return to the fireside. On 
 being again and again requested to do so, he prom- 
 ised compliance, but still remained where he was, 
 striding up and down slowly, and contemplating the 
 sky, which was singularly clear and starry. At last 
 Mrs. Burns found him stretched on a mass of 
 straw, with his eyes fixed on a beautiful planet, 
 that shone like another moon,’ and prevailed on 
 
58 
 
 BURNS 
 
 him to come in. He immediately, on entering the 
 house, called for his desk, and wrote exactly as 
 they now stand, with all the ease of one copying 
 from memory, these sublime and pathetic verses.” 
 
 Thou ling’ring star ^with less’ning ray, 
 
 That lov’st to greet the early morn, 
 
 Again thou usher’st in the day. 
 
 My Mary from my soul was torn. 
 
 O Mary, dear departed shade! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest? 
 
 See’st thou thy lover lowly laid? 
 
 Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast? 
 
 That sacred hour can I forget. 
 
 Can I forget the hallow’d grove. 
 
 Where, by the winding Ayr, we met 
 To live one day of parting love? 
 
 Eternity cannot efface 
 Those records dear of transports past. 
 
 Thy image at our last embrace— 
 
 Ah! little thought we 't was our last! 
 
 Ayr, gurgling, kiss’d his pebbled shore, 
 
 O’erhung with wild woods thickening green; 
 
 The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar 
 ’Twin’d amorous round the raptur’d scene; 
 
 The flowers sprang wanton to be prest. 
 
 The birds sang love on every spray. 
 
 Till too, too soon the glowing west 
 Proclaim’d the speed of winged day. 
 
LOVE SONGS 59 
 
 Still o’er these scenes my mem’ry wakes, 
 
 And fondly broods with miser-care. 
 
 , Time but th’ impression stronger makes, 
 
 As streams their channels deeper wear. 
 
 O Mary, dear departed shade! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest? 
 
 See’st thou thy lover lowly laid.^ 
 
 Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 
 
 THE BLUE-EYED LASSIE. 
 
 Burns was visiting a Mr. Jeffrey, a clergyman of 
 Lochlaben, and his blue-eyed daughter did the hon¬ 
 ors of the table. Next morning he presented this* 
 song. 
 
 I gaed a waefu’ gate yestreen, 
 
 A gate, I fear. I’ll dearly rue; 
 
 I gat my death frae twa sweet een, 
 
 Twa lovely een o’ bonie blue. 
 
 ’Twas not her golden ringlets bright. 
 
 Her lips like roses wat wi’ dew, 
 
 Her heaving bosom lily-white;— 
 
 It was her een sae bonie blue. 
 
 She talk’d, she smil’d, my heart she wyl’d. 
 
 She charm’d my soul I wist na how; 
 
 And ay the stound, the deadly wound, 
 
 Cam frae her een sae bonie blue. 
 
 But spare to speak, and spare to speed; 
 
 She’ll aiblins listen to my vow; 
 
 Should she refuse. I’ll lay my dead 
 To her twa een sae bonie blue. 
 
60 
 
 BURNS 
 
 TIBBIE DUNBAR. 
 
 Contributed to Johnson’s Museum, and appar¬ 
 ently not connected with his personal history. 
 
 O wilt thou go wi’ me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar? 
 
 O wilt thou go’ wi’ me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar? 
 Wilt thou ride on a horse, or be drawn in a car, 
 Or walk by my side, O sweet Tibbie Dunbar ? 
 
 I care na thy daddie, his lands and his money, 
 
 I care na thy kin, sae high and sae lordly: 
 
 But say thou wilt hae me for better for waur. 
 
 And come in thy coatie, sweet Tibbie Dunbar. 
 
 JOHN ANDERSON MY JO. 
 
 The best song Burns wrote in 1790, his thirty- 
 first year. 
 
 John Anderson my jo, John, 
 
 When we were first acquent, 
 
 Your locks were like the raven, 
 
 Your bonie brow was brent; 
 
 But now your brow is bald, John, 
 
 Your locks are like the snaw; 
 
 But blessings on your frosty pow, 
 
 John Anderson my jo. 
 
 John Anderson my jo, John, 
 
 We clamb the hill thegither; 
 
 And monie a canty day, John, 
 
 We’ve had wi’ ane anither: 
 
 Now we maun totter down, John, 
 
 But hand in hand we’ll go. 
 
 And sleep thegither at the foot, 
 
 John Anderson my jo. 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 61 
 
 MY HEART’S IN THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 The first stanza was not written by Burns. He 
 found it, the one beautiful spot in an old string of 
 ^oss^^cl, and made it the basis of his own beauti¬ 
 ful song. 
 
 X CHORUS. 
 
 My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here. 
 My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer, 
 A-chasing the wild deer and following the roe— 
 My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go! 
 
 Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, 
 The birthplace of valour, the country of worth! 
 Wherever I wander, wherever I rove. 
 
 The hills of the Highlands forever I love. 
 
 Farewell to the mountains high cover’d with snow. 
 Farewell to the straths and green valleys below. 
 Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods. 
 Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods! 
 
 THE BONIE WEE THING. 
 
 Bonie wee thing, cannie wee thing. 
 
 Lovely wee thing, was thou mine, 
 
 I wad wear thee in my bosom. 
 
 Lest my jewel I should tine. 
 
 Wishfully I look and languish 
 In that bonie face o’ thine; 
 
 And my heart it stounds wi’ anguish. 
 
 Lest my wee thing be na mine. 
 
BURNS 
 
 S2 
 
 Wit, and grace, and love, and beauty. 
 
 In ae constellation shine; 
 
 To adore thee is my duty, 
 
 Goddess o’ this soul o’ mine! 
 
 Bonie wee, &c. 
 
 FAREWELL TO NANCY. 
 
 Burns wrote several songs to Clarinda, the Mrs. 
 M’Lehose he was so passionately devoted to for a 
 few weeks in his second winter in Edinburgh, but 
 this is the only one that was really of the first 
 water. This lady was about to go to Jamaica to 
 find her husband, and relented toward Burns enough 
 to admit him to a visit, December 6th, 1795, four 
 years after her first meeting with him. This beau¬ 
 tiful song doubtless records the passionate feelings 
 incident to that meeting. 
 
 Ae fond kiss, and then we sever! 
 
 Ae fareweel, alas, for ever! 
 
 Deep in heart-wrung tears Til pledge thee. 
 Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee. 
 
 Who shall say that fortune grieves him 
 While the star of hope she leaves him? 
 
 Me, nae cheerfu’ twinkle lights me. 
 
 Dark despair around benights me. 
 
 I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy, 
 
 Naething could resist my Nancy; 
 
 But to see her, was to love her; 
 
 Love but her. and love for ever. 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 53 
 
 Had we never lov’d sae kindly, 
 
 Had we never lov’d sae blindly, 
 
 Never met—or never parted. 
 
 We had ne’er been broken hearted. 
 
 Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest! 
 Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest! 
 Thine be ilka joy and treasure. 
 
 Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure. 
 
 Ae fond kiss, and then we sever; 
 
 Ae farewell, alas, for ever! 
 
 Deep in heart-wrung tears I pledge thee. 
 Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee. 
 
 MY NANNIE’S AWA. 
 
 This was addressed to Clarinda the following 
 summer, during her absence in the West Indies. 
 
 Now in her green mantle blythe Nature arrays, 
 
 And listens the lambkins that bleat o’er the braes. 
 While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw; 
 
 But to me it’s delightless—my Nannie’s awa. 
 
 The snaw-drap and primrose our woodlands adorn. 
 And violets bathe in the weet o’ the morn; 
 
 They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw. 
 
 They mind me o’ Nannie—my Nannie’s awa. 
 
 Thou laverock that springs frae the dews o’ the lawn. 
 The shepherd to warn o’ the grey-breaking dawn. 
 
 And thou, mellow mavis, that hails the night-£a’, 
 
 Gie over for pity—my Nannie’s awa. 
 
64 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Come autumn sae pensive, in yellow and grey, 
 
 And soothe me wi’ tidings o’ nature’s decay; 
 
 The dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw, 
 Alane can delight me—now Nannie’s awa. 
 
 BONIE LESLEY. 
 
 Mr. Bailie, with his two daughters, passed through 
 Dumfries and Burns accompanied them on their 
 way for fourteen or fifteen miles, and dined and 
 spent the day with them. On his return he wrote 
 this song, parodying an old ballad, “My Bonnie 
 Lizzie Baillie.” 
 
 O saw ye bonie Lesley 
 As she gaed o’er the border? 
 
 She’s gane, like Alexander, 
 
 To spread her conquests farther. 
 
 To see her is to love her. 
 
 And love but her for ever; 
 
 For Nature made her what she is. 
 
 And ne’er made sic anither! 
 
 Thou art a queen, Fair Lesley, 
 
 Thy subjects we, before thee: 
 
 Thou art divine. Fair Lesley, 
 
 The hearts o’ men adore thee. 
 
 The Deil he could na scaith thee. 
 
 Or aught that wad belang thee; 
 
 He’d look into thy bonie face. 
 
 And say, T canna wrang thee.’ 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 66 
 
 The Powers aboon will tent thee; 
 
 Misfortune sha’na steer thee; 
 
 Thou’rt like themselves sae lovely, 
 
 That ill they’ll ne’er let near thee. 
 
 Return again, Fair Lesley, 
 
 Return to Caledonie! 
 
 That we may brag, we hae a lass 
 There’s nane again sae bonie. 
 
 MY WIFE’S A WINSOME WEE THING. 
 
 Written to fit the air “My wife’s a wanton wee 
 thing.” 
 
 I never saw a fairer, 
 
 I never lo’ed a dearer. 
 
 And neist my heart I’ll wear her, 
 
 For fear my jewel tine. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 She is a winsome wee thing. 
 
 She is a handsome wee thing. 
 
 She is a lo’esome wee thing, 
 
 This sweet wee wife o’ mine! 
 
 The warld’s wrack, we share o’t; 
 
 The warstle and the care o’t, 
 
 Wi’ her I’ll blythely bear it. 
 
 And think my lot divine. 
 
66 
 
 BURNS 
 
 HIGHLAND MARY. 
 
 Written in 1792, and Burns in a letter to Mr. 
 Thomson says, “The subject of the song is one of 
 the most interesting passages of my youthful days” 
 —his love for Mary Campbell. 
 
 Ye banks, and braes, and streams around 
 The castle o’ Montgomery, 
 
 Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, 
 Your waters never drumlie! 
 
 There simmer first unfauld her robes, 
 
 And there the langest tarry; 
 
 For there I took the last fareweel 
 O’ my sweet Highland Mary. 
 
 How sweetly bloom’d the gay green birk, 
 
 How rich the hawthorn’s blossom. 
 
 As underneath their fragrant shade 
 I clasp’d her to my bosom! 
 
 The golden hours, on angel wings, 
 
 Flew o’er me and my dearie; 
 
 For dear to me, as light and life, 
 
 Was my sweet Highland Mary. 
 
 Wi’ monie a vow, and lock’d embrace, 
 
 Our parting was fu’ tender; 
 
 And, pledging aft to meet again, 
 
 We tore oursels asunder; 
 
 But oh! fell death’s untimely frost, 
 
 That nipt my flower sae early! 
 
 Now green’s the sod, and cauld’s the clay, 
 
 That wraps my Highland Mary! 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 67 
 
 O pale, pale now, those rosy lips, 
 
 I aft hae kiss’d sae fondly! 
 
 And closed for ay the sparkling glance, 
 
 That dwelt on me sae kindly! 
 
 And mould’ring now in silent dust. 
 
 That heart that lo’ed me dearly! 
 
 But still within my bosom’s core 
 Shall live my Highland Mary. 
 
 DUNCAN GRAY. 
 
 Burns got the suggestion for this delicious ballad 
 from a rude song in Johnson’s Museum, the name 
 only being retained. 
 
 Duncan Gray came here to woo ' 
 
 (Ha, ha, the wooing o’t!) 
 
 On blythe Yule-Night when we were fou 
 (Ha, ha, the wooing o’t!) 
 
 Maggie coost her head fu’ high. 
 
 Look’d asklent and unco skeigh, 
 
 Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh— 
 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o’t! 
 
 Duncan fleech’d, and Duncan pray’d 
 (Ha, ha, the wooing o’t!), 
 
 Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig 
 (Ha, ha, the wooing o’t!). 
 
 Duncan sigh’d baith out and in, 
 
 Grat his een baith bleer’t an blin', 
 
 Spak o’ lowpin o’er a linn— 
 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o’t! 
 
68 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Time and chance are but a tide 
 (Ha, ha, the wooing o’t!) : 
 
 Slighted love is sair to bide 
 (Ha, ha, the wooing o’t!). 
 
 ‘Shall I like a fool,’ quoth he, 
 
 ‘For a haughty hizzie die? 
 
 She may gae to—France for me!’ 
 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o’t! 
 
 How it comes, let doctors tell 
 (Ha, ha, the wooing o’t!) : 
 
 Meg grew sick, as he grew hale 
 (Ha, ha, the wooing o’t!). 
 
 Something in her bosom wrings, 
 
 For relief a sigh she brings, 
 
 And O !, her een they spak sic things!—» 
 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o’t! 
 
 Duncan was a lad o’ grace 
 (Ha, ha, the wooing o’t!) 
 
 Maggie’s was a piteous case 
 (Ha, ha, the wooing o’t!) : 
 
 Duncan could na be her death. 
 
 Swelling pity smoor’d his wrath; 
 
 Now they’re crouse and canty baith— 
 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o’t! 
 
 GALLA WATER. 
 
 Burns first devoted himself to improving a song 
 in the Museum about the lasses of Galla Water, and 
 finally wrote this beautiful set of verses. 
 
 There’s braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes. 
 That wander thro’ the blooming heather; 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 69 
 
 But Yarrow braes nor Ettrick shaws 
 Can match the lads o’ Galla Water. 
 
 But there, is ane, a secret ane, 
 
 Aboon them a’ I lo’e him better; 
 
 And I’ll be his, and he’ll be mine, 
 
 The bonie lad o’ Galla Water. 
 
 Altho’ his daddie was nae laird. 
 
 And tho’ I hae nae meikle tocher; 
 
 Yet rich in kindest, truest love. 
 
 We’ll tent our flocks by Galla Water. 
 
 It ne’er was wealth, it ne’er was wealth. 
 
 That coft contentment, peace or pleasure; 
 
 The bands and bliss o’ mutual love, 
 
 O that’s the chiefest warl’s treasure! 
 
 0, WHISTLE, AN’ I’LL COME TO YE, MY LAD. 
 
 In August, 1793, Burns wrote to Thomson, “Is 
 ‘Whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad,’ one of 
 your airs? I admire it much, and yesterday I set 
 the following verses to it.” 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 O, whistle an’ I’ll come to ye, my lad! 
 
 O, whistle an’ I’ll come to ye, my lad! 
 
 Tho’ father an’ mother an’ a’ should gae mad, 
 
 O, whistle an’ I’ll come to ye, my lad I 
 
 But warily tent when ye come to court me. 
 
 And come nae unless the. back-yett be a-jee; 
 
70 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Syne up the back-style, and let naebody see, 
 
 And come as ye were na comin to me, 
 
 And come as ye were na comin to me! 
 
 At kirk, or at market, whene’er ye meet me, 
 
 Gang by me as tho’ that ye car’d na a flie; 
 
 But steal me a blink o’ your bonie black e’e. 
 
 Yet look as ye were na lookin to me. 
 
 Yet look as ye were na lookin to me! 
 
 Ay vow and protest that ye care na for me, 
 
 And whyles ye may lightly my beauty a wee; 
 But court na anither though joken ye be. 
 
 For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me. 
 
 For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me! 
 
 THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS. 
 
 The first half-stanza is from an older song, which 
 Burns improved upon. 
 
 The lovely lass of Inverness, 
 
 Nae joy nor pleasure can she see; 
 
 For e’en to morn she cries ‘Alas!’ 
 
 And ay the saut tear blin’s her e’e:— 
 
 ‘Drumossie moor, Drumossie day— 
 
 A waefu’ day it was to me! 
 
 For there I lost my father dear. 
 
 My father dear and brethren three. 
 
 Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay. 
 
 Their graves are growin green to see. 
 
 And by them lies the dearest lad 
 That ever blest a woman’s e’e. 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 71 
 
 Now wae to thee, 'hou cruel lord, 
 
 A bluidy man I trow thou be. 
 
 For monie a heart thou hast made sair 
 That ne’er did wrang to thine or thee! 
 
 A RED, RED ROSE. 
 
 Another improvement on an old song, 1794. 
 
 O, my luve is like a red, red rose. 
 
 That’s newly sprung in June. 
 
 O, my luve is like the melodie. 
 
 That’s sweetly play’d in tune. 
 
 As fair art thou, my bonie lass. 
 
 So deep in luve am I, 
 
 And I will luve thee still, my dear, 
 
 Till a’ the seas gang dry. 
 
 Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, 
 
 And the rocks melt wi’ the sun! 
 
 And I will luve thee still, my dear. 
 
 While the sands o’ life shall run. 
 
 And fare thee weel, my only luve. 
 
 And fare thee weel a while! 
 
 And I will come again, my luve, 
 
 Tho’ it were ten thousand mile! 
 
 LASSIE Wr THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS. 
 
 Now Nature deeds the flowery lea. 
 
 And a’ is young and sweet like thee, 
 
 O, wilt thou share its joys wi’ me. 
 
 And say thou’lt be my dearie. O? 
 
BURNS 
 
 V2 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Lassie wi’ the lint-white locks, 
 
 Bonie lassie, artless lassie. 
 
 Wilt thou wi’ me tent the flocks— 
 
 Will thou be my dearie, O? 
 
 The primrose bank, the wimpling burn, 
 
 The cuckoo on the milk-white thorn. 
 
 The wanton lambs at early morn 
 Shall welcome thee, my dearie, O. 
 
 And when the welcome simmer shower 
 Has cheer’d ilk drooping little flower. 
 
 We’ll to the breathing woodbine-bower 
 At sultry noon, my dearie, O. 
 
 When Cynthia lights wi’ silver ray 
 The weary shearer’s hameward way. 
 
 Thro’ yellow waving fields we’ll stray, 
 
 And talk o’ love, my dearie, O. 
 
 And when the howling wintry blast 
 Disturbs my lassie’s midnight rest. 
 
 Enclasped to my faithful breast, 
 
 I’ll comfort thee, my dearie, O. 
 
 HEY FOR A LASS WE A TOCHER. 
 
 Written in February, 1796, shortly before Burns 
 died. 
 
 Awa wi’ your witchcraft o’ beauty’s alarms. 
 
 The slender bit beauty you grasp in your arms: 
 
 O, gie me the lass that has acres o’ charms, 
 
 O, gie me the lass wi’ the weel-stockit farms. 
 
LOVE SONGS 
 
 73 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Then hey, for a lass wi’ a tocher, then hey, for a 
 lass wi’ a tocher, 
 
 Then hey, for a lass wi’ a tocher; the nice yellow 
 guineas for me. 
 
 Your beauty’s a flower in the morning that blows, 
 And withers the faster, the faster it grows; 
 
 But the rapturous charm o’ the bonie green knowes, 
 Ilk spring they’re new deckit wi’ bonie white yowes. 
 
 And e’en when this beauty your bosom has blest, 
 The brightest o’ beauty may cloy, when possest; 
 
 But the sweet yellow darlings wi’ Geordie imprest, 
 The langer ye hae them—the mair they’re carest. 
 
 O, WERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST. 
 
 * 
 
 Written for Miss Jessie Lewars, who attended 
 Burns in his last illness. He asked her to sit down 
 at the piano and play over any air that pleased 
 her, and he would write a song to it. She played 
 “The robin came to the wren’s nest,” and after 
 he got it in his head Burns wrote this poem to that 
 air. 
 
 O, wert thou in the cauld blast. 
 
 On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 
 
 My plaidie to the angry airt. 
 
 I’d shelter thee. I’d shelter thee. 
 
 Or did misfortune’s bitter storms 
 Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, 
 
 Thy bield should be my bosom. 
 
 To share it a’, to share it a’. 
 
74 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Or were I in the wildest waste, 
 
 Of earth and air, of earth and air, 
 The desert were a paradise. 
 
 If thou wert there, if thou wert there. 
 Or were I monarch o’ the globe, 
 
 Wi’ thee to reign, wi’ thee to reign. 
 The only jewel in my crown 
 
 Wad be my queen, wad be my queen. 
 
 COMING THROUGH THE RYE. 
 
 Coming through the rye, poor body, 
 Coming through the rye, 
 
 She draiglet a’ her petticoatie. 
 Coming through the ’•ye. 
 
 Jenny’s a’ wat, poor body, 
 
 Jenny’s seldom dry; 
 
 She draiglet a’ her petticoatie, 
 Coming through the rye. 
 
 Gin a body meet a body— 
 
 Coming through the rye; 
 
 Gin a body kiss a body— 
 
 Need a body cry? 
 
 Gin a body meet a body 
 Coming through the glen. 
 
 Gin a body kiss a body— 
 
 Need the world ken? 
 
 Jenny’s a’ wat, poor body; 
 
 Jenny’s seldom dry; 
 
 She draiglet a’ her petticoatie. 
 Coming through the rye. 
 
OTHER SONGS 
 
 MTHERSON’S FAREWELL. 
 
 James M’Pherson was a noted freebooter. While 
 he lay in prison under sentence of death he com¬ 
 posed a song and an appropriate air. Burns wrote 
 this song to the same air, as an improvement, in 
 1788. 
 
 Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, 
 
 The wretch’s destinie! 
 
 McPherson’s time will not be long 
 On yonder gallows-tree. 
 
 • CHORUS. 
 
 Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, 
 
 Sae dauntingly gaed he. 
 
 He play’d a spring, and danc’d it round 
 Below the gallows-tree. 
 
 O, what is death but parting breath? 
 
 On many a bloody plain 
 I’ve dar’d his face, and in this place 
 I scorn him yet again! 
 
 Untie these bands from off my hands, 
 
 And bring to me my sword, 
 
 And there’s no a man in all Scotland 
 But Pll brave him at a word. 
 
 I’ve lived a life of sturt and strife; 
 
 I die by treacherie: 
 
 75 
 
76 
 
 BURNS 
 
 It burns my heart I must depart, 
 
 And not avenged be. 
 
 Now farewell light, thou sunshine bright. 
 And all beneath the sky! 
 
 May coward shame distain his name. 
 
 The wretch that dare not die! 
 
 AULD LANG SYNE. 
 
 This is another improvement written by Burns in 
 1788. He pretended the poem was not his, sending 
 it to George Thomson with an expression of self- 
 congratulation on having been so fortunate as to 
 recover it from an old man’s singing. Certainly 
 the second and third verses are his own. 
 
 Should auld acquaintance be forgot. 
 
 And never brought to mind? 
 
 Should auld acquaintance be forgot. 
 
 And auld lang syne. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 For auld lang syne, my dear. 
 
 For auld lang syne. 
 
 We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet 
 For auld lang syne 1 
 
 And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp. 
 
 And surely I’ll be mine, 
 
 And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet 
 For auld lang syne! 
 
OTHER SONGS 
 
 TT 
 
 We twa hae run about the braes, 
 
 And pou’d the gowans fine, 
 
 But we’ve wander’d monie a weary fit 
 Sin’ auld lang syne! 
 
 We twa hae paidl’d in the burn 
 Frae morning sun till dine. 
 
 But seas between us braid hae roar’d 
 Sin’ auld lang syne. 
 
 And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere. 
 And gie’s a hand o’ thine, 
 
 And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught 
 For auld lang syne! 
 
 WILLIE BREW’D A PECK O’ MAUT. 
 
 This was written in 1789 to celebrate a joyous 
 meeting between Allan Masterton, William Nicol, 
 and Burns, on a visit Burns was paying to Nicol. 
 
 O, Willie brewed a peck o’ maut. 
 
 And Rob and Allan cam to see. 
 
 Three blyther hearts that lee-lang night 
 Ye wad na found in Christendie. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 We are na fou, we’re na that fou. 
 
 But just a drappie in our e’e! 
 
 The cock may craw, the day may daw, 
 
 And ay we’ll taste the barley-bree! 
 
78 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Here are we met three merry boys, 
 
 Three merry boys I trow are we; 
 
 And monie a night we’ve merry been. 
 
 And monie mae we hope to be! 
 
 It is the moon, I ken her horn. 
 
 That’s blinkin in the lift sae hie: 
 
 She shines sae bright to wyle us hame. 
 
 But, by my sooth, she’ll wait a wee I 
 
 Wha first shall rise to gang awa, 
 
 A cuckold, coward loun is he! 
 
 Wha first beside his chair shall fa’. 
 
 He is the King amang us three! 
 
 THE DEIL’S AWA WT TH’ EXCISEMAN. 
 
 This song was written in 1792, when Burns and 
 some companions were watching a suspicious ves¬ 
 sel in Solway Firth and were impatiently waiting for 
 the return of Lewars, his brother exciseman. 
 
 The Deil cam fiddlin thro’ the town. 
 
 And danc’d awa wi’ th’ Exciseman, 
 
 And ilka wife cries:—“Auld Mahoun, 
 
 I wish you luck o’ the prize, man! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 The Deil’s awa, the Deil’s awa. 
 
 The Deil’s awa wi’ th’ Exciseman! 
 
 He’s danc’d awa, he’s danc’d awa. 
 
 He’s danc’d awa wi’ th’ Exciseman! 
 
OTHER SONGS 
 
 79 
 
 “We’ll mak our maut, and we’ll brew our drink, 
 We’ll laugh, sing, and rejoice, man. 
 
 And monie braw thanks to the meikle black 
 Deil, 
 
 That danc’d awa wi’ th’ Exciseman! 
 
 There’s threesome reels, there’s foursome reels. 
 There’s hornpipes and strathspeys, man. 
 
 But the ae best dance e’er cam to the land 
 Was The Diel’s Awa wi’ th’ Exciseman. 
 
 BANNOCKBURN. 
 
 There was a tradition that the air, “Hey, tuttie 
 taitie” was Robert Bruce’s march at the battle of 
 Bannockburn, and, fired by the progress of the 
 Erench revolution in 1793, Burns fitted the follow-^ 
 ing words on liberty and independence to that tune. 
 Thomson did not like the tune and Burns adapted 
 the song to the air of Lewie Gordon. Scots cherish 
 this as one of their greatest patriotic songs, but 
 Wordsworth thought any clever man of talent might 
 have written it. 
 
 Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled, 
 
 Scots, wham Bruce has aften led. 
 
 Welcome to your gory bed 
 Or to victorie! 
 
 Now’s the day, and now’s the hour: 
 
 See the front o’ battle lour. 
 
 See approach proud Edward’s power— 
 
 Chains and slaverie! 
 
80 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Wha will be a traitor knave? 
 
 Wha can fill a coward’s grave? 
 
 Wha sae base as be a slave?— 
 
 ' Let him turn, and flee I 
 
 Wha for Scotland’s King and Law 
 Freedom’s sword will strongly draw. 
 
 Freeman stand or freeman fa’, 
 
 Let him follow me! 
 
 By Oppression’s woes and pains. 
 
 By your sons in servile chains. 
 
 We will drain our dearest veins 
 
 But they shall be free! 
 
 Lay the proud usurpers low! 
 
 Tyrants fall in every foe! 
 
 Liberty’s in every blow! 
 
 Let us do, or die! 
 
 CONTENTED WF LITTLE. 
 
 Nov. 19, 1794. 
 
 Contented wi’ little, and cantie wi’ mair. 
 
 Whene’er I forgather wi’ sorrow and care, 
 
 I gie them a skelp as they’re creepin’ alang, 
 
 Wi’ a cog o’ gude swats, and an auld Scottish sang. 
 
 I whyles claw the elbow o’ troublesome thought; 
 But man is a soger, and life is a faught 
 My mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch. 
 And my freedom’s my lairdship nae monarch dare 
 touch. 
 
OTHER SONGS 
 
 81 
 
 A towmond o’ trouble, should that be my fa’, 
 
 A night o’ gude fellowship sowthers it a’; 
 
 When at the blythe end of our journey at last, 
 
 Wha the deil ever thinks o’ the road he has past? 
 
 Blind Chance, let her snapper and stoyte on her way, 
 Be’t to me, be’t frae me, e’en let the jad gae: 
 
 Come ease, or come travail; come pleasure or pain. 
 My warst word is—‘Welcome, and welcome again!’ 
 
 THE MAN’S THE GOWD FOR A’ THAT. 
 
 Burns wrote to Thomson (January, 1795) that 
 Aiken had said the exclusive themes for song-writ¬ 
 ing were love and wine, but this is at least “two 
 or three pretty good prose thoughts converted into 
 rhyme.” 
 
 Is there for honest poverty 
 That hings his head, an’ a’ that? 
 
 The coward slave, we pass him by— 
 
 W e dare be poor for a’ that! 
 
 For a’ that, an’ a’ that, 
 
 Our toil’s obscure, an’ a’ that. 
 
 The rank is but the guinea’s stamp. 
 
 The man’s the gowd for a’ that. 
 
 What though on hamely fare we dine, 
 
 Wear hodden grey, an’ a’ that? 
 
 Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine— 
 A man’s a man, for a’ that. 
 
 For a’ that, an’ a’ that, 
 
 Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that. 
 
BURNS 
 
 The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor. 
 
 Is king o’ men for a’ that. 
 
 Ye see yon birkie ca’d ‘a lord,’ 
 
 What struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that? 
 
 Tho’ hundreds worship at his word. 
 
 He’s but a cuif for a’ that. 
 
 For a’ that, an’ a’ that, 
 
 His ribband, star, an’ a’ that, 
 
 The man o’ independent mind. 
 
 He looks an’ laughs at a’ that. 
 
 A prince can mak a belted knight, 
 
 A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that! 
 
 But an honest man’s aboon his might— 
 Guid faith, he mauna fa’ that! 
 
 For a’ that, an’ a’ that. 
 
 Their dignities, an’ a’ that. 
 
 The pith o’ sense an’ pride o’ worth 
 Are higher rank that a’ that. 
 
 Then let us pray that come it may 
 (As come it will for a’ that) 
 
 That Sense and Worth o’er a’ the earth 
 Shall bear the gree an’ a’ that! 
 
 For a’ that, an’ a’ that. 
 
 It’s cornin’ yet for a’ that. 
 
 That man to man the world o'er 
 Shall brithers be for a’ that. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 HOLY WILLIES PRAYER. 
 
 Written in 1785 as a satire on the Auld Light 
 minister with whom Burns’s friend, Gavin Hamil¬ 
 ton, had been having a controversy. 
 
 O Thou, wha in the Heavens dost dwell, 
 
 Wha, as it pleases best thysel’. 
 
 Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell, 
 
 A’ for thy glory. 
 
 And no for onie guid or ill 
 
 They’ve done afore thee! 
 
 I bless and praise thy matchless might. 
 
 Whan thousands thou hast left in night. 
 
 That I am here afore thy sight. 
 
 For gifts an’ grace, 
 
 A burnin an’ a shinin light. 
 
 To a’ this place. 
 
 What was I, or my generation. 
 
 That I should get sic exaltation? 
 
 I, wha deserve sic just damnation. 
 
 For broken laws. 
 
 Five thousand years ’fore my creation. 
 
 Thro’ Adam’s cause. 
 
 When frae my mither’s womb I fell. 
 Thou might hae plunged me in hell, 
 
 8d 
 
84 
 
 BURNS 
 
 To gnash my gums, to weep and wail, 
 
 In burnin’ lake. 
 
 Where damned devils roar and yell. 
 Chain’d to a stake. 
 
 Yet I am here a chosen sample. 
 
 To show thy grace is great and ample; 
 
 I’m here a pillar in thy temple, .■ ' 
 
 Strong as a rock, 
 
 A guide, a buckler, an example 
 To a’ thy flock. 
 
 O Lord, thou kens what zeal I bear, 
 
 When drinkers drink, and swearers swear, 
 And singin there and dancin here, 
 
 Wi’ great an’ sma’; 
 
 For I am keepit by thy fear, 
 
 Free frae them a’. 
 
 But yet, O Lord! confess I must. 
 
 At times I’m fash’d wi’ fleshly lust. 
 
 An’ sometimes too, wi’ warldly trust, 
 
 Vile self gets in; 
 
 But thou remembers we are dust, 
 
 Defil’d in sin. 
 
 O Lord! yestreen, thou kens, wi’ Meg— 
 Thy pardon I sincerely beg. 
 
 Oh! may it ne’er be a livin plague 
 To my dishonour. 
 
 An’ I’ll ne’er lift a lawless leg 
 Again upon her. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 85 
 
 Besides I farther maun allow, 
 
 Wi’ Lizzie’s lass, three times I trow; 
 
 But Lord, that Friday I was fou. 
 
 When I came near her. 
 
 Or else thou kens thy servant true 
 
 Wad ne’er hae steer’d her. 
 
 May be thou lets this fleshly thorn 
 Beset thy servant e’en and morn, 
 
 Lest he owre high and prcfud should turn, 
 ’Cause he’s sae gifted; 
 
 If sae, thy hand maun e’en be borne. 
 Until thou lift it. 
 
 Lord, bless thy chosen in this place. 
 
 For here thou hast a chosen race; 
 
 But God confound their stubborn face. 
 And blast their name, 
 
 Wha bring thy elders to disgrace. 
 
 An’ public shame. 
 
 Lord, mind Gawn Hamilton’s deserts. 
 
 He drinks, an’ swears, an’ plays at cartes. 
 Yet has sae monie takin arts, 
 
 Wi’ grit an’ sma’, 
 
 Frae God’s ain priest the people’s hearts 
 He steals awa’. 
 
 An’ whan we chasten’d him therefore. 
 Thou kens how he bred sic a splore. 
 
86 
 
 BURNS 
 
 As set the warld in a roar 
 
 O’ laughin at us; 
 
 Curse thou his basket and his store, 
 
 Kail and potatoes. 
 
 Lord, hear my earnest cry an’ pray’r, 
 Against that presbyt’ry o’ Ayr; 
 
 Thy strong right hand, Lord, make it bare, 
 Upo’ their heads; 
 
 Lord, weigh it down, and dinna spare, 
 
 For their misdeeds. 
 
 O Lord my God, that glib-tongu’d Aiken, 
 My very heart and soul are quakin. 
 
 To think how we stood sweatin, shakin, 
 An’ p—d wi’ dread. 
 
 While he, wi’ hinging lips an’ snakin, 
 
 Held up his head. 
 
 Lord, in the day of vengeance try him; 
 Lord, visit them wha did employ him, 
 
 And pass not in thy mercy by ’em. 
 
 Nor hear their pray’r: 
 
 But, for thy people’s sake, destroy ’em. 
 And dinna spare. 
 
 But, Lord, remember me and mine 
 Wi’ mercies temp’ral and divine. 
 
 That I for gear and grace may shine, 
 Excell’d by nane, 
 
 An’ a’ the glory shall be thine, 
 
 Amen, Amen. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 87 
 
 TO A MOUSE 
 
 ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, 
 NOVEMBER, 1785. 
 
 When Burns first thought of publishing in 1785, 
 he probably composed this and some of the follow¬ 
 ing poems as pure literary efforts. This and the 
 poem “To a Daisy” are considered Burns’s two best 
 pastoral efforts. 
 
 Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie, 
 
 O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! 
 
 Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 
 
 Wi’ bickering brattle! 
 
 I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee, 
 
 Wi’ murd’ring pattle! 
 
 Pm truly sorry man’s dominion 
 
 Has broken Nature’s social union, 
 
 An’ justifies that ill opinion, 
 
 Which makes thee startle, 
 
 At me, thy poor, earth-born companion. 
 
 An’ fellow-mortal! 
 
 I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; 
 
 What then ? poor beastie, thou maun live! 
 
 A daimen-icker in a thrave 
 
 ’S a sma’ request: 
 
 ril get a blessin wi’ the lave. 
 
 And never miss’t! 
 
 Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! 
 
 Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin! 
 
88 
 
 BURNS 
 
 An’ naething, now, to big a new ane, 
 
 O’ foggage green! 
 
 An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin, 
 
 Baith snell an’ keen! 
 
 Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste. 
 An’ weary winter comin fast. 
 
 An’ cozie here, beneath the blast. 
 
 Thou thought to dwell, 
 
 Till crash! the cruel coulter past. 
 
 Out thro’ thy cell. 
 
 That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble, 
 Has cost thee monie a weary nibble 1 
 Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble. 
 But house or hald, 
 
 To thole the winter’s sleety dribble. 
 
 An’ cranreuch cauld 1 
 
 But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane. 
 
 In proving foresight may be vain: 
 
 The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men 
 Gang aft a-gley. 
 
 An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain. 
 For promis’d joy. 
 
 Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me! 
 The present only toucheth thee: 
 
 But, Och! I backward cast my e’e 
 On prospects drear 1 
 An’ forward, tho’ I canna see, 
 
 I g^uess an’ fear! 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 89 
 
 MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN. 
 
 A DIRGE. 
 
 Written to express a favorite sentiment of the 
 author. 
 
 When chill November’s surly blast 
 Made fields and forests bare, 
 
 One ev’ning as I wandered forth 
 Along the banks of Ayr, 
 
 I spy’d a man, whose aged step 
 Seem’d weary, worn with care; 
 
 His face was furrow’d o’er with years, 
 
 And hoary was his hair. 
 
 Young stranger, whither wand’rest thou? 
 
 Began the rev’rend Sage; 
 
 Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, 
 
 Or youthful pleasure’s rage? 
 
 Or, haply, prest with cares and woes. 
 
 Too soon thou hast began 
 To wander forth, with me, to mourn 
 The Miseries of Man. 
 
 The sun that overhangs yon moors. 
 Out-spreading far and wide. 
 
 Where hundreds labour to support 
 A haughty lordling’s pride; 
 
 , I’ve seen yon weary winter sun 
 Twice forty times return; 
 
 And ev’ry time has added proofs. 
 
 That Man was made to mourn. 
 
90 
 
 BURNS 
 
 O man! while in thy early years, 
 
 How prodigal of time! 
 
 Mis-spending all thy precious hours, 
 
 Thy glorious youthful prime! 
 
 Alternate follies take the sway; 
 Licentious passions burn; 
 
 Which tenfold force give nature’s law. 
 That Man was made to mourn. 
 
 Look not alone on youthful prime. 
 
 Or manhood’s active might; 
 
 Man then is useful to his kind, 
 
 Supported is his right, 
 
 But see him on the edge of life. 
 
 With cares and sorrows worn. 
 
 Then age and want. Oh! ill-match’d pair! 
 Show Man was made to mourn. 
 
 A few seem favourites of fate, 
 
 In pleasure’s lap carest; 
 
 Yet, think not all the rich and great 
 Are likewise truly blest. 
 
 But, Oh! what crowds in ev’ry land 
 Are wretched and forlorn; 
 
 Thro’ weary life this lesson learn. 
 
 That Man was made to mourn. 
 
 Many and sharp the num’rous ills 
 Inwoven with our frame! 
 
 More pointed still we make ourselves. 
 Regret, remorse, and shame! 
 
 And man, whose heaven-erected face 
 The smiles of love adorn. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 91 
 
 Man’s inhumanity to man 
 
 Makes countless thousands mourn I 
 
 See yonder poor, o’erlabour’d wight, 
 
 So abject, mean, and vile. 
 
 Who begs a brother of the earth 
 To give him leave to toil; 
 
 And see his lordly fellow-worm 
 The poor petition spurn, 
 
 Unmindful, tho’ a weeping wife 
 And helpless offspring mourn. 
 
 If I’m design’d yon lordling’s slave. 
 
 By nature’s law design’d, 
 
 Why was an independent wish 
 E’er planted in my mind? 
 
 If not, why am I subject to 
 His cruelty, or scorn? 
 
 Or why has man the will and pow’r 
 To make his fellow mourn? 
 
 Yet, let not this too much, my son, 
 Disturb thy youthful breast; 
 
 This partial view of human-kind 
 Is surely not the last! 
 
 The poor, oppressed, honest man. 
 
 Had never, sure, been born. 
 
 Had there not been some recompense 
 To comfort those that mourn! 
 
 O Death! the poor man’s dearest friend. 
 The kindest and the best! 
 
92 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Welcome the hour my aged limbs 
 Are laid with thee at rest! 
 
 The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow, 
 
 From pomp and pleasure torn; 
 
 But, Oh! a blest relief to those 
 That weary-laden mourn! 
 
 THE COTTER’S SATURDAY NIGHT. 
 
 INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ., OF AYR. 
 
 This, one of the most popular of Burns’s compo¬ 
 sitions, describes his own father and the home of 
 his childhood. 
 
 Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
 
 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 
 
 Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile. 
 
 The short and simple annals of the Poor. 
 
 Gray. 
 
 My lov’d, my honour’d, much respected friend! 
 
 No mercenary bard his homage pays: 
 
 With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end; 
 
 My dearest meed, a friend’s esteem and praise: 
 
 To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays. 
 
 The lowly train in life’s sequester'd scene; 
 
 The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; 
 
 What Aiken in a cottage would have been; 
 
 Ah! tho’ his worth unknown, far happier there, I 
 ween. 
 
 November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh; 
 
 The short’ning winter day is near a close; 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 93 
 
 The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; 
 
 The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose: 
 The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes, 
 
 This night his weekly moil is at an end, 
 
 Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes. 
 Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend. 
 
 And weary, o’er the moor, his course does hame- 
 ward bend. 
 
 At length his lonely cot appears in view. 
 
 Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; 
 
 Th’ expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacker through 
 To meet their Dad, wi’ flichterin noise an’ glee. 
 His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie. 
 
 His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile, 
 
 The lisping infant prattling on his knee. 
 
 Does a’ his weary carking cares beguile. 
 
 An’ makes him quite forget his labour an’ his toil. 
 
 Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in. 
 
 At service out, amang the farmers roun’; 
 
 Some ca’ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin 
 A cannie errand to a neebor town: 
 
 Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown. 
 
 In youthfu’ bloom, love sparkling in her e’e. 
 
 Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown. 
 
 Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee. 
 
 To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. 
 
 With joy unfeign’d brothers and sisters meet. 
 
 An’ each for other’s weelfare kindly spiers: 
 
 The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnotic’d fleet; 
 
 Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; 
 
94 BURNS 
 
 The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; 
 
 Anticipation forward points the view. 
 
 The mother, wi’ her needle an’ her sheers. 
 
 Gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new; 
 
 The father mixes a’ wi’ admonition due. 
 
 Their master’s an’ their mistress’s command, 
 
 The younkers a’ are warned to obey; 
 
 An’ mind their labours wi’ an eydent hand. 
 
 An’ ne’er, tho’ out o’ sight, to jauk or play: 
 
 An’ O! be sure to fear the Lord alway. 
 
 An’ mind your duty, duly, mom an’ night! 
 
 Lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray. 
 
 Implore His counsel and assisting might: 
 
 They never sought in vain that sought the Lord 
 aright 1’ 
 
 But hark! a rap comes gently to the door. 
 
 Jenny, wha kens the meaning o’ the same. 
 
 Tells how a neebor lad cam o’er the moor. 
 
 To do some errands, and convoy her hame. 
 
 The wily mother sees the conscious flame 
 Sparkle in Jenny’s e’e, and flush her cheek; 
 
 Wi’ heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name. 
 While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; 
 
 Weel pleas’d the mother hears, it’s nae wild, worth¬ 
 less rake. 
 
 Wi’ kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben; 
 
 A strappan youth; he takes the mother’s eye; 
 Blythe Jenny sees the visit’s no ill ta’en; 
 
 The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. 
 
 The youngster’s artless heart oi’erflows wi’ joy. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 95 
 
 But blate and laithfu’, scarce can weel behave; 
 
 The mother, wi’ a woman’s wiles, can spy 
 What makes the youth sae bashfu’ an’ sae grave; 
 
 Weel-pleas’d to think her bairn’s respected like the 
 lave. 
 
 0 happy love! where love like this is found! 
 
 O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! 
 
 I’ve paced much this weary, mortal round. 
 
 And sage experience bids me this declare— 
 
 *If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, 
 One cordial in this melancholy vale, 
 
 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair. 
 
 In other’s arms br^eathe out the tender tale. 
 
 Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev’ning 
 gale. 
 
 Is there, in human form, that bears a heart— 
 
 A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth! 
 
 That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art. 
 
 Betray sweet Jenny’s unsuspecting youth? 
 
 Curse on his perjur’d arts! dissembling smooth! 
 
 Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil’d? 
 
 Is there no pity, no relenting ruth. 
 
 Points to the parents fondling o’er their child? 
 
 Then paints the ruin’d maid, and their distraction 
 wild! 
 
 But now the supper crowns their simple board. 
 
 The healsome parritch, chief o’ Scotia’s food: 
 
 The soupe their only Hawkie does afford, 
 
 That ’yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; 
 
 The dame brings forth in complimental mood, 
 
 To grace the lad, her weel-hain’d kebbuck, fell. 
 
96 BURNS 
 
 An’ aft he’s prest, an’ aft he ca’s it guid; 
 
 The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell, 
 
 How ’twas a towmond auld, sin’ lint was i’ the bell. 
 
 The cheerfu’ supper done, wi’ serious face, 
 
 They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; 
 
 The sire turns o’er, wi’ patriarchal grace. 
 
 The big ha’-Bible, ance his father’s pride: 
 
 His bonnet rev’rently is laid aside, 
 
 His lyart haffets wearing thin an’ bare; 
 
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide. 
 
 He wales a portion with judicious care. 
 
 And ‘Let us worship God!’ he says, with solemn air. 
 
 They chant their artless notes in simple guise; 
 
 They tune their hearts, by far t’ e noblest aim: 
 Perhaps Dundee’s wild warbling measures rise. 
 
 Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name; 
 
 Or noble Elgin beets the heav’nward flame, 
 
 The sweetest far of Scotia’s holy lays: 
 
 Compar’d with these, Italian trills are tame; 
 
 The tickl’d ears no heartfelt raptures raise; 
 
 Nae unison hae they with our Creator’s praise. 
 
 The priest-like father reads the sacred page. 
 
 How Abram was the friend of God on high; 
 
 Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 
 With Amalek’s ungracious progeny; 
 
 Or how the royal Bard did groaning lie 
 
 Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire; 
 
 Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; 
 
 Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire; 
 
 Or other holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 97 
 
 Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, 
 
 How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; 
 
 How He, who bore in Heaven the second name. 
 
 Had not on earth whereon to lay His head; 
 
 How His first followers and servants sped; 
 
 The precepts sage they wrote to many a land: 
 
 How he, who lone in Patmos banished, 
 
 Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand; 
 
 And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounc’d by 
 Heaven’s command. 
 
 Then kneeling down, to Heaven’s Eternal King, 
 
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays: 
 
 Hope ‘springs exulting on triumphant wing,’ 
 
 That thus they all shall meet in future days: 
 
 There ever bask in uncreated rays, 
 
 No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear. 
 
 Together hymning their Creator’s praise. 
 
 In such society, ye^ still more dear; 
 
 While circling Time moves round in an eternal 
 sphere. 
 
 Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride. 
 
 In all the pomp of method, and of art. 
 
 When men display to congregations wide 
 Devotion’s ev’ry grace, except the heart! 
 
 The Power, incens’d, the pageant will desert. 
 
 The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; 
 
 But haply, in some cottage far apart, 
 
 May hear, well pleas’d, the language of the soul; 
 
 And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enrol. 
 
98 
 
 1 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Then homeward all take off their sev’ral way; 
 
 The youngling cottagers retire to rest: 
 
 The parent-pair their secret homage pay, 
 
 And proffer up to Heav’n the warm request, 
 
 That He who stills the raven’s clam’rous nest. 
 
 And decks the lily fair in flow’ry pride. 
 
 Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best. 
 
 For them and for their little ones provide; 
 
 But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine pre¬ 
 side. 
 
 From scenes like these old Scotia’s grandeur springs. 
 That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad: 
 
 Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 
 
 ‘An honest man’s the noblest work of God’: 
 
 And certes, in fair virtue’s heavenly road. 
 
 The cottage leaves the palace far behind; 
 
 What is a lordling’s pomp? a cumbrous load, 
 Disguising oft the wretch of human kind. 
 
 Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin’d! 
 
 O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! 
 
 For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! 
 
 Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 
 
 Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! 
 
 And, Oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent 
 From luxury’s contagion, weak and vile; 
 
 Then, howe’er crowns and coronets be rent, 
 
 A virtuous populace may rise the while. 
 
 And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov’d 
 Isle. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 99 
 
 O Thou! who pour’d the patriotic tide 
 
 That stream’d thro’ Wallace’s undaunted heart; 
 Who dar’d to, nobly, stem tyrannic pride. 
 
 Or nobly die, the second glorious part, 
 
 ('the patriot’s God, peculiarly thou art. 
 
 His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) 
 
 O never, never, Scotia’s realm desert. 
 
 But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard, 
 
 In bright succession raise, her ornament and guaro ! 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE DEIL. 
 
 An outgrowth of Burns’s irritation at the Auld 
 Light clergy. 
 
 O Prince! O Chief of many throned Pow’rs, 
 That led th’ embattled Seraphim to war — 
 
 Milton. 
 
 O thou! whatever title suit thee, 
 
 Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie, 
 Wha in yon cavern grim an’ sootie. 
 Clos’d under hatches, 
 Spairges about the brunstane cootie. 
 To scaud poor wretches! 
 
 Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee. 
 An’ let poor damned bodies be; 
 
 I’m sure sma’ pleasure it can gie, 
 Ev’n to a deil. 
 
 To skelp an’ scaud poor dogs like me. 
 An’ hear us squeel 1 
 
100 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Great is thy pow'r, an’ great thy fame; 
 
 Far kend an’ noted is thy name; 
 
 An’ tho’ yon Iowan heugh’s thy hame, 
 
 Thou travels far; 
 
 An’ faith! thou’s neither lag nor lame, 
 
 Nor blate nor scaur. 
 
 Whyles, ranging like a roarin lion 
 
 For prey, a’ holes an’ corners tryin; 
 
 Whyles on the strong-wing’d Tempest flyin, 
 Tirlin the kirks; 
 
 Whyles, in the human bosom pryin, ’ 
 Unseen thou lurks. 
 
 I’ve heard my reverend Grannie say. 
 
 In lanely glens ye like to stray; 
 
 Or where auld, ruin’d castles, gray. 
 
 Nod to the moon^ 
 
 Ye fright the nightly wand’rer’s way, 
 
 Wi’ eldritch croon. 
 
 When twilight did my Grannie summon. 
 
 To say her pray’rs, douce, honest woman! 
 
 Aft yont the dyke she’s heard you bummin, 
 Wi’ eerie drone; 
 
 Or, rustlin, thro’ the boortrees comin, 
 
 Wi’ heavy groan. 
 
 Ae dreary, windy, winter night. 
 
 The stars shot down wi’ sklentin light 
 
 Wi’ you, mysel, I gat a fright, 
 
 Ayont the lough; 
 
 Ye, like a rash-buss, stood in sight, 
 
 Wi’ waving sugh. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 101 
 
 The cudgel in my nieve did shake, 
 
 Each bristl’d hair stood like a stake, 
 
 When wi’ an eldritch, stoor quaick, quaick, 
 Amang the springs, 
 
 Awa ye squatter’d like a drake, 
 
 On whistling wings. 
 
 Let warlocks grim, an’ wither’d hags. 
 
 Tell how wi’ you on ragweed nags. 
 
 They skim the muirs, an’ dizzy crags, 
 
 Wi’ wicked speed; 
 
 And in kirk-yards renew their leagues, 
 Owre howkit dead. 
 
 Thence, countra wives, wi’ toil an’ pain. 
 May plunge an’ plunge the kirn in vain; 
 For, oh! the yellow treasure’s taen 
 By witching skill; 
 
 An’ dawtit, twal-pint Hawkie’s gaen 
 As yell’s the Bill. 
 
 Thence, mystic knots mak great abuse. 
 
 On young Guidmen, fond, keen, an’ crouse; 
 When the best wark-lume i’ the house. 
 
 By cantrip wit. 
 
 Is instant made no worth a louse. 
 
 Just at the bit. 
 
 When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord. 
 An’ float the jinglin icy-boord. 
 
 Then, Water-kelpies haunt the foord. 
 
 By your direction. 
 
 An’ nighted Trav’llers are allur’d 
 To their destruction. 
 
102 
 
 BURNS 
 
 An’ aft your moss-traversing Spunkies 
 Decoy the wight that late an’ drunk is: 
 The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkies 
 Delude his eyes, 
 
 Till in some miry slough he sunk is, 
 Ne’er mair to rise. 
 
 When Masons’ mystic word an’ grip. 
 
 In storms an’ tempests raise you up, 
 Some cock or cat your rage maun stop, 
 Or, strange to tell! 
 
 The youngest Brother ye wad whip 
 Aff straught to hell. 
 
 Lang syne, in Eden’s bonie yard, 
 
 When youthfu’ lovers first were pair’d. 
 An’ all the soul of love they shar’d, 
 
 The raptur’d hour. 
 
 Sweet on the fragrant, flow’ry swaird, 
 
 In shady bow’r: 
 
 Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog! 
 Ye came to Paradise incog. 
 
 An’ play’d on man a cursed brogfue, 
 (Black be you fa!) 
 
 An’ gied the infant warld a shog, 
 
 ’Maist ruin’d a’. 
 
 D’ye mind that day, when in a bizz, 
 
 Wi’ reekit duds, an’ reestit gizz, 
 
 Ye did present your smoutie phiz, 
 
 ’Mang better folk. 
 
 An’ sklented on the man of Uzz 
 Your spitefu’ joke? 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 105 
 
 An’ how ye gat him i’ your thrall, 
 
 An’ brak him out o’ house an’ hal,’ 
 While scabs an’ blotches did him gall, 
 Wi’ bitter claw. 
 
 An’ lows his ill-tongu’d, wickjed Scawl, 
 Was war St ava? 
 
 But a’ your doings to rehearse. 
 
 Your wily snares an’ fechtin fierce. 
 
 Sin’ that day Michael did you pierce, 
 Down to this time. 
 
 Wad ding a’ Lallan tongue, or Erse, 
 
 In prose or rhyme. 
 
 An’ now, auld Cloots, I ken ye’re thinkin, 
 A certain Bardie’s rantin, dnnkin. 
 
 Some luckless hour will send him linkin. 
 To your black pit; 
 
 But, faith! he’ll turn a corner jinkin. 
 
 An’ cheat you yet! 
 
 But, fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben! 
 
 O wad ye tak a thought an’ men’! 
 
 Ye aiblins might—I dinna ken— 
 
 Still hae a stake— 
 
 I’m wae to think upo’ yon den, 
 
 Ev’n for your sake! 
 
IM 
 
 BURNS 
 
 THE AULD FARMER’S NEW YEAR MORN¬ 
 ING SALUTATION TO HIS AULD ' 
 MARE, MAGGIE, 
 
 ON GIVING HER THE ACCUSTOMED RIPP OF CORN TO 
 HANSEL IN THE NEW YEAR. 
 
 A guid New Year I wish thee, Maggie! 
 
 Hae, there’s a ripp to thy auld baggie: 
 
 Tho’ thou’s howe-backit, now, an’ knaggie. 
 
 I’ve seen the day. 
 
 Thou could hae gane like ony staggie 
 Out owre the lay. 
 
 Tho’ now thou’s dowie, stiff, an’ crazy, 
 
 An’ thy auld hide’s as white’s a daisie. 
 
 I’ve seen thee dappl’t, sleek an’ glaizie, 
 
 A bonie grey: 
 
 He should been tight that daur’t to raize thee, 
 Ance in a day. 
 
 Thou ance was i’ the foremost rank, 
 
 A filly buirdly, steeve, an’ swank. 
 
 An’ set weel down a shapely shank. 
 
 As e’er tread yird; 
 
 An’ could hae flown out owre a stank, 
 
 Like onie bird. 
 
 It’s now some nine-an’-twenty year. 
 
 Sin’ thou was my guid-father’s meere; 
 
 He gied me thee, o’ tocher clear. 
 
 An’ fifty mark; 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 106 
 
 Tho’ it was sma’, ’twas weel-won gear, 
 
 An’ thou was stark. 
 
 When first I gaed to woo my Jenny, 
 
 Ye then was trottin wi’ your minnie: 
 
 Tho’ ye was trickie, slee, an’ funnie, 
 
 Ye ne’er was donsie; 
 
 But hamely, tawie, quiet, an’ cannie, 
 
 An’ unco sonsie. 
 
 That day, ye pranc’d wi’ muckle pride, 
 When ye bure hame my bonie bride; 
 
 An’ sweet an’ gracefu’ she did ride, 
 
 Wi’ maiden air! 
 
 Kyle-Stewart I could bragged wide. 
 
 For sic a pair. 
 
 Tho’ now ye dow but hoyte and hoble, 
 
 An’ wintle like a saumont-coble. 
 
 That day ye was a j inker noble 
 For heels an’ win’! 
 
 An’ ran them till they a’ did wauble, 
 
 Far, far behin’. 
 
 When thou an’ I were young and skeigh, 
 An’ stable meals at fairs were driegh. 
 
 How thou wad prance, an’ snore, an’ skriegh 
 An’ take the road! 
 
 Town’s-bodies ran, and stood abeigh, 
 
 An’ ca’t thee mad. 
 
 When thou was corn’t, an’ I was mellow, 
 We took the road ay like a swallow; 
 
106 
 
 BURNS 
 
 At Brooses thou had ne’er a fellow, 
 
 For pith an’ speed; 
 
 But ev’ry tail thou pay’t them hollow, 
 Whare’er thou gaed. 
 
 The sma’, droop-rumpl’t, hunter cattle. 
 Might aiblins waur’t thee for a brattle; 
 
 But sax Scotch miles thou try’t their mettle. 
 An’ gart them whaizle: 
 
 Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle 
 O’ saugh or hazel. 
 
 Thou was a noble fittie-lan’. 
 
 As e’er in tug or tow was drawn! 
 
 Aft thee an’ I, in aught hours gaun, 
 
 On guid March weather, 
 
 Hae turn’d sax rood beside our han’. 
 
 For days thegither. 
 
 Thou never braindg’t, an’ fetch’t, an’ fliskit. 
 But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit, 
 
 An’ spread abreed thy weel-fill’d brisket, 
 Wi’ pith an’ pow’r. 
 
 Till spritty knowes wad rair’t and riskit. 
 An’ slypet owre. 
 
 When frosts lay lang, an’ snaws were deep, 
 An’ threaten’d labour back to keep, 
 
 I gied thy cog a wee-bit heap 
 
 Aboon the timmer; 
 
 I ken’d mv Maggie wad na sleep 
 For that, or simmer. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 107 
 
 In cart or car thou never reestit; 
 
 The steyest brae thou wad hae face’t it; 
 
 Thou never lap, an’ sten’t, and breastit, 
 Then stood to blaw; 
 
 But just thy step a wee thing hastit. 
 Thou snoov’t awa. 
 
 My pleugh is now thy bairn-time a*: 
 
 Four gallant brutes as e’er did draw; 
 
 Forbye sax mae, I’ve sell’t awa, 
 
 That thou hast nurst: 
 
 They drew me thretteen pund an’ twa. 
 The vera warst. 
 
 Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought, 
 
 An’ wi’ the weary warl’ fought! 
 
 An’ monie an anxious day, I thought 
 We wad be beat! 
 
 » Yet here to crazy age we’re brought, 
 
 Wi’ something yet. 
 
 And think na, my auld, trusty servan', 
 
 That now perhaps thou’s less deservin. 
 
 An’ thy auld days may end in starvin. 
 For my last fou, 
 
 A heapit stimpart. I’ll reserve ane 
 Laid by for you. 
 
 We’ve worn to crazy years thegither; 
 
 We’ll toyte about wi’ ane anither; 
 
108 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Wi’ tentie care I’ll flit thy tether 
 To some hain’d rig, 
 
 Whare ye may nobly rax your leather, 
 
 Wi’ sma’ fatigue. 
 
 TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, 
 
 ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN 
 APRIL, 1786. 
 
 Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow’r, 
 
 Thou’s met me in an evil hour; 
 
 For I maun crush amang the stoure 
 Thy slender stem. 
 
 To spare thee now is past my pow’r. 
 
 Thou bonie gem. 
 
 Alas! it’s no thy neebor sweet. 
 
 The bonie Lark, companion meet! 
 
 Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet! 
 
 Wi’ spreckl’d breast. 
 
 When upward-springing, blythe, to greet 
 The purpling east. 
 
 Cauld blew the bitter biting north 
 
 Upon thy early, humble birth; 
 
 Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 
 Amid the storm. 
 
 Scarce rear’d above the parent-earth 
 Thy tender form. 
 
 The flaunting flow’rs our gardens yield. 
 
 High shelt’ring woods and wa’s maun shield. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 1C9 
 
 But thou, beneath the random bield 
 O’ clod or stane, 
 
 Adorns the histie stibble-field, 
 
 Unseen, alane. 
 
 There, in thy scanty mantle clad. 
 
 Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread, 
 
 Thou lifts thy unassuming head 
 In humble guise; 
 
 But now the share uptears thy bed. 
 
 And low thou lies! 
 
 Such is the fate of artless Maid, 
 
 Sweet flow’ret of the rural shade! 
 
 By love’s simplicity betray’d. 
 
 And guileless trust, 
 
 Till she, like thee, all soil’d, is laid 
 Low i’ the dust. 
 
 Such is the fate of simple Bard, 
 
 On life’s rough ocean luckless start’d! 
 Unskilful he to note the card 
 Of prudent lore. 
 
 Till billows rage, and gales blow hard. 
 And whelm him o’er! 
 
 Such fate to suffering worth is giv’n, 
 
 Who long with wants and woes has striv’n. 
 By human pride or cunning driv’n 
 To mis’ry’s brink, 
 
110 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Till wrench’d of ev’ry stay but Heav’n, 
 
 He, ruin’d, sink! 
 
 Ev’n thou who mourn’st the Daisy’s fate, 
 
 That fate is thine—no distant date; 
 
 Stern Ruin’s ploughshare drives, elate. 
 
 Full on thy bloom, 
 
 Till crush’d beneath the furrow’s weight. 
 
 Shall be thy doom 1 
 
 THE TWA DOGS.—A TALE. 
 
 . Written after Burns had decided to publish his 
 first edition. It gives an admirable picture of the 
 converse of the rich and the poor. 
 
 'Twas in that place o’ Scotland’s isle. 
 
 That bears the name o’ Auld King Coil, 
 
 Upon a bonie day in June, 
 
 When wearing thro’ the afternoon, 
 
 Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame. 
 Forgather’d ance upon a time. 
 
 The first I’ll name, they ca’d him Caesar, 
 
 Was keepit for his Honour’s pleasure: 
 
 His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs, 
 
 Shew’d he was nane o’ Scotland’s dogs; 
 
 But whalpit some place far abroad, 
 
 Whare sailors gang to fish for Cod. 
 
 His locked, letter’d, braw brass collar, 
 
 Shew’d him the gentleman and scholar; 
 
 But tho’ he was o’ high degree. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 The fient a pride—nae pride had he; 
 
 But wad hae spent an hour caressin, 
 
 Ev’n wi’ a tinkler-gipsey’s messin. 
 
 At kirk or market, mill or smiddie, 
 
 Nae tawted tyke, tho’ e’er sae duddie, 
 
 But he wad stan’t, as glad to see him. 
 
 An’ stroan’t on stanes and hillocks wi’ him. 
 
 The tither was a ploughman’s collie, 
 
 A rhyming, ranting, raving billie, 
 
 Wha for his friend and comrade had him. 
 
 An’ in his freaks had Luath ca’d him. 
 
 After some dog in Highland sang, 
 
 Was made lang syne,—Lord knows how lang. 
 
 He was a gash an’ faithfu’ tyke, 
 
 As ever lap a sheugh or dike. 
 
 His honest, sonsie, baws’nt face, 
 
 Ay gat him friends in ilka place; 
 
 His breast was white, his touzie back 
 Weel clad wi’ coat o’ glossy black; 
 
 His gawcie tail, wi’ upward curl. 
 
 Hung owre his hurdies wi’ a swirl. 
 
 Nae doubt but they were fain o’ ither, 
 
 An’ unco pack an’ thick thegither; 
 tVi’ social nose whyles snuff’d and snowkit; 
 Whyles mice and moudieworts they howkit; 
 iVhyles scour’d awa in lang excursion, 
 
 An’ worry’d ither in diversion; 
 
 Until wi’ daffin weary grown, 
 
 Upon a knowe they sat them down. 
 
 An’ there began a lang digression 
 About the lords o’ the creation. 
 
112 
 
 BURNS 
 
 C^SAR. 
 
 I’ve aften wonder’d, honest Luath, 
 
 What sort o’ life poor dogs like you have; 
 
 An’ when the gentry’s life I saw, 
 
 What way poor bodies liv’d ava. 
 
 Our Laird gets in his racked rents, 
 
 His coals, his kain, an’ a’ his stents: 
 
 He rises when he likes himsel; 
 
 His flunkies answer at the bell; 
 
 He ca’s his coach; he ca’s his horse; 
 
 He draws a bonie, silken purse 
 As lang’s my tail, whare thro’ the steeks, 
 
 The yellow letter’d Geordie keeks. 
 
 Frae morn to e’en, it’s nought but toiling. 
 
 At baking, roasting,‘frying, boiling; 
 
 An’ tho’ the gentry first are stechin. 
 
 Yet ev’n the ha’ folk fill their pechan, 
 
 Wi’ sauce, ragouts, and such like trashtrie, 
 That’s little short o’ downright wastrie. 
 
 Our Whipper-in, wee blastit wonner, 
 
 Poor worthless elf, it eats a dinner, 
 
 Better than ony tenant man 
 His Honour has in a’ the Ian: 
 
 An’ what poor cot-folk pit their painch in, 
 
 I own it’s past my comprehension. 
 
 LUATH. 
 
 Trowth, Caesar, whyles they’re fash’t eneugh 
 A cotter howkin in a sheugh, 
 
 Wi’ dirty stanes biggin a dyke. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 113 
 
 Baring a quarry, and siclike, 
 
 Himsel, a wife, he thus sustains, 
 
 A smytrie o’ wee duddie weans, 
 
 An’ nought but his han’ darg, to keep 
 Them right an’ tight in thack an’ rape. 
 
 An’ when they meet wi’ sair disasters. 
 Like loss o’ health, or want o’ masters. 
 
 Ye maist wad think, a wee touch langer, 
 An’ they maun starve o’ cauld and hunger; 
 But, how it comes, I never kend yet. 
 They’re maistly wonderfu’ contented; 
 
 An’ buirdly chiels, an’ clever hizzies. 
 
 Are bred in sic a way-^ as this. is. 
 
 C.i:SAR. 
 
 But then to see how ye’re negleckit. 
 How huff’d, an’ cuff’d, an’ disrespeckitl 
 Lord, man, our gentry care as littfe 
 For delvers, ditchers, an’ sic cattle. 
 
 They gang as saucy by poor folk. 
 
 As I wad by a stinking brock. 
 
 I’ve notic’d, on our Laird’s court-day. 
 
 An’ mony a time my heart’s been wae. 
 Poor tenant bodies, scant o’ cash. 
 
 How they maun thole a factor’s snash: 
 He’ll stamp and threaten, curse an’ swear. 
 He’ll apprehend them, poind their gear; 
 While they maun stan’, wi’ aspect humble, 
 An’ hear it a’, an’ fear an’ tremble! 
 
 I see how folk live that hae riches ; 
 
 But surely poor folk maun be wretches. 
 
114 
 
 They’re no s'ae WfetcheSV ^ne 
 Tho’ constantly on' 'pO,ot^i|th’s,, Brinfi;.:; ^ ^ , 
 
 They’re sae accustoin’d' '^^^ .., • 
 
 The view o’t gies them'littlfe'' 
 
 Then chance an’ fortuhe lire'''sa;fe guided. 
 They’re ay in less oPmair 'nro^^ 
 
 An’ tho’ fatigu’d wi‘ close'et^pldyment,' 
 
 A blink o’ rest’s a swOet enyoynterttJ y ^ 
 
 The dearest comfort O’ their^livei, 
 
 Their grushie weans ari’”fiithfu* tvives: 
 
 The prattling things are jiist fheif pride. 
 
 That sweetens a’ their fire-side. 
 
 An’ whyles twalpennie: worth o’ nappy 
 Can mak the bodies unco happy; 
 
 They lay aside their private' cares, ‘ 
 
 To mind the Kirk and State affairs; 
 
 They’ll talk o’ patronage an’ priests, 
 
 Wi’ kindling fury i’ their breasts. 
 
 Or tell what new taxation’s comin. 
 
 An’ ferlie at the folk in Lon’on. 
 
 As bleak-fac’d Hallowmass returns, 
 
 They get the jovial, ranting kirns, 
 
 ■When rural life, o’ ev’ry sUtion, 
 
 Unite in common recreation; 
 
 Love blinks. Wit slaps, an’ social Mirth 
 Forgets there’s Care upo’ the earth. 
 
 That merry day the year begins. 
 
 They bar the door on frosty winds; 
 
 The nappy reeks wi’ mantling ream. 
 
 An’ sheds a heart-inspiring steam; 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 115 
 
 The luntin pipe, ap’ sneechin mill,- 
 Are haunded round wi’ right guid will; , 
 The cantie auld folks crackin crouse. 
 
 The young anes ranting thro’ the house,— 
 My heart has been sae fain to see them. 
 That I for joy hae barket wi’ them.' 
 
 Still it's owre true that ye hae said/^i’* ■ 
 Sic game is now ow.re aften play’d. 
 There’s monie a creditable stock 
 O’ decent, honest, fawsont folk. 
 
 Are riven out baith root an’,/branch. 
 
 Some rascal’s pridefu’,. greed to quench, 
 Wha thinks ;to knit himsel the faster 
 In favour wi’ some gentle Master, 
 
 Wha, aiblins, thrang a parliamentin. 
 
 For Britain’s guid his saul indentin— 
 
 C^SAR. 
 
 Haith, lad, ye little ken about it; 
 
 For Britain’s guid! guid faith! I doubt it. 
 Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him. 
 An’ saying oys-or no’s they bid him: 
 
 At operas ah’ plays parading, 
 
 Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading; 
 
 Or maybe, in a frolic daft, 
 
 To Hague or Calais taks a waft. 
 
 To make a tour, an’ tak a whirl, 
 
 To learn bon ton an’ see the worl’. 
 
 There, at Vienna or Versailles, 
 
 He rives his father’s auld entails; 
 
 Or by Madrid he taks the rout. 
 
 To thrum guitars, an’ fecht wi’ nowt; 
 
116 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Or down Italian vista startles, 
 
 Whore-hunting amang groves o’ myrtles; 
 Then bouses drumly German water, 
 
 To mak himsel look fair and fatter. 
 
 An’ clear the consequential sorrows. 
 Love-gifts of Carnival signoras. 
 
 For Britain’s guid! for her destruction! 
 
 Wi’ dissipation, feud, an’ faction! 
 
 LUATH. 
 
 Hech, man 1 dear sirs! is that the gate 
 They waste sae mony a braw estate? 
 
 Are we sae foughten an’ harass’d 
 For gear to gang that gate at last? 
 
 O would they stay aback frae courts, 
 
 An’ please themsels wi’ contra sports. 
 
 It wad for ev’ry ane be better. 
 
 The Laird, the Tenant, an’ the Cotter! 
 
 For thae frank, rantin, ramblin billies, 
 
 Fient haet o’ them’s ill-hearted fellows; 
 Except for breaking o’ their timmer. 
 
 Or speaking lightly o’ their limmer. 
 
 Or shootin o’ a hare or moor-cock. 
 
 The ne’er-a-bit they’re ill to poor folk. 
 
 But will ye tell me. Master Caesar, 
 
 Sure great folk’s life a life o’ pleasure? 
 
 Nae cauld nor hunger e’er can steer them. 
 The vera thought o’t need na fear them. 
 
 C^SAR. 
 
 Lord, man, were ye but whyles whare I am 
 The gentles' ye wad ne’er? envy ’em. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 117 
 
 It’s true, they need na starve or sweat, 
 
 Thro’ winter’s cauld, or simmer’s heat; 
 They’ve nae sair wark to craze their banes, 
 An’ fill auld age wi’ grips an’ granes; 
 
 But human bodies are sic fools. 
 
 For a’ their colleges and schools. 
 
 That when nae real ills perplex them, 
 
 They mak enow themsels to vex them; 
 
 An’ ay the less they hae to sturt them. 
 
 In like proportion, less will hurt them. 
 
 A country fellow at the pleugh. 
 
 His acre’s till’d, he’s right eneugh; 
 
 A country girl at her wheel. 
 
 Her dizzen’s done, she’s unco weel: 
 
 But Gentlemen, an’ Ladies warst, 
 
 Wi’ ev’n down want o’ wark are curst. 
 
 They loiter, lounging, lank, an’ lazy; 
 
 Tho’ deil haet ails them, yet uneasy: 
 
 Their days insipid, dull, an’ tasteless; 
 
 Their nights unquiet, lang, an’ restless; 
 
 An’ ev’n their sports, their balls an’ races. 
 Their galloping thro’ public places. 
 
 There’s sic parade, sic pomp, an’ art, 
 
 The joy can scarcely reach the heart. 
 
 The men cast out in party-matches. 
 
 Then sowther a’ in deep debauches. 
 
 Ae night, they’re mad wi’ drink an’ whoring, 
 Niest day their life is past enduring. 
 
 The Ladies arm-in-arm in clusters. 
 
 As great an’ gracious a’ as sisters; 
 
 But hear their absent thoughts o’ ither. 
 
118 .BURNS 
 
 They’re a’ run deils an’ jads thegither. , 
 
 Whyles, owre the wee bit cup and, platie, 
 
 They sip the scandal potion pretty; p 
 
 Or lee-lang nights, wi’ crabbit leuks, ^ . 
 
 Pore ower the devil’s pictur’d beuks ; ^ j 
 
 Stake on a chance a farmer’s stackyard, 
 
 An’ cheat like pny unhang’d blackguard. 
 
 There’s some exceptions, man an” woman; 
 
 But this is Gentry’s Hfe in common. 
 
 * I 
 
 ' ■ -■ V ' ^ ^ ‘ - 
 
 By this, the sun was out o’ sight, 
 
 An’ darker gloamin brought the night: 
 
 The bum-clock humm’d wi’ lazy drone, . 
 The kye stood rowtin i’ the loan; 
 
 When up they, gat, an’ shook their lugs, , 
 Rejoic’d they were na- tnen hut , dogs; -• , , 
 
 An’ each.,took af¥ his several way/ . .. , 
 Resolv’d to meet, some; ither day. ^ 
 
 addrTss to the unco quid, or the 
 
 • RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS., , p 
 
 My son, these maxims make a rule, ' 
 
 And lump them aye thegither; 
 
 The 'Rigid Righteous is a fool. 
 
 The Rigid Wise anither: 
 
 The cleanest corn that e’er ivas dight^ ' 
 May hae some pyles o’ caff in; 
 
 So ne’er a fellow-crCature slight 
 For random fits o’ daffin. 
 
 Solomon.— Eccles. vii. 16. 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 lid 
 
 O ye wha are sae guid yoursel, 
 
 Sae pious and sae holy, 
 
 Ye’ve nought to do but mark and tell 
 Your Neebpur’s fauts and folly! 
 ,Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, 
 
 ' Supply’d wi’ store o’ water. 
 
 The heapet happer’s ebbing still. 
 
 And still the clap plays clatter. 
 
 Hear me, ye venerable Core, 
 
 As counsel for poor mortals. 
 
 That frequent pass douce Wisdom’s door, 
 For glaikit Folly’s portals; 
 
 I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes. 
 Would here propone defences. 
 
 Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes. 
 Their failings and mischances. 
 
 Ye see your state wi’ theirs compar’d. 
 
 And shudder at the niffer. 
 
 But past a moment’s fair regard. 
 
 What maks the mighty differ; 
 
 Discount what scant occasion gave 
 That purity ye pride in. 
 
 And (what’s aft mair than a’ the lave) 
 Your better art o’ hiding. 
 
 Think, when your castigated pulse 
 Gies now and then a wallop. 
 
 What raging must his veins convulse, 
 That still eternal gallop: 
 
 Wi’ wind and tide fair i’ your tail, 
 
 Right on ye scud your sea-way; 
 
120 
 
 BURNS 
 
 But in the teeth o’ baith to sail. 
 
 It maks an unco leeway. 
 
 See Social life and Glee sit down. 
 
 All joyous and unthinking, 
 
 Till, quite transmugrify’d, they’re growa 
 Debauchery and Drinking: 
 
 O would they stay to calculate 
 Th’ eternal consequences; 
 
 Or your more dreadful hell to state. 
 Damnation of expenses! 
 
 Ye high, exalted, virtuous Dames, 
 
 Ty’d up in godly laces. 
 
 Before ye gie poor Frailty names. 
 Suppose a change o’ cases; 
 
 A dear lov’d lad, convenience snug, 
 
 A treacherous inclination— 
 
 But, let me whisper i’ your lug. 
 
 Ye’re aiblins nae temptation. 
 
 Then gently scan your brother man. 
 
 Still gentler sister Woman; 
 
 Tho’ they may gang a kenning wrang. 
 
 To step aside is human: 
 
 One point must still be greatly dark, 
 
 The moving IVhy they do it; 
 
 And just as lamely can ye mark. 
 
 How far perhaps they rue it. 
 
 Who made the heart, ’tis He alone 
 Decidedly can try us. 
 
 He knows each chord its various tone, 
 Each spring its various bias: 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 121 
 
 Then at the balance let’s be mute. 
 
 We never can adjust it; 
 
 What’s done we partly may compute, 
 
 But know not what's resisted. 
 
 TAM O’ SHANTER. 
 
 Considered by Scott one of the best tales ever 
 written. It was written one summer’s day in 1790, 
 and is the only longer poem of the poet’s later years. 
 
 A TALE. 
 
 Of Brownyis and of Bogilis full is this Buke. 
 
 Gawin Douglas. 
 
 When chapman billies leave the street, 
 
 And drouthy neebors, neebors meet. 
 
 As market-days are bearing late. 
 
 An’ folk begin to tak the gate; 
 
 While we sit bousing at the nappy. 
 
 And getting fou and unco happy. 
 
 We think na on the lang Scots miles. 
 
 The mosses, waters, slaps, and styles. 
 
 That lie between us and our hame, 
 
 Whare sits our sulky sullen dame. 
 
 Gathering her brows like gathering storm. 
 Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 
 
 This truth fand honest Tam o’ Shanter, 
 
 As he frae Ayr ae night did canter, 
 
 (Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses. 
 
 For honest men and bonie lasses.) 
 
 O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise. 
 
122 BURNS 
 
 As ta’en thy ain wife KatU'S advice! ; ' 
 
 She tauld thee weel thou wast a skellutn, 
 
 A blethferinjg, blustering, drunken blellum; 
 That frae Noveihber till'October, 
 
 Ae market-day thou was na sober; 
 
 That ilka melder, “wi’ the miller. 
 
 Thou sat as lang as thou had siller; 
 
 That ‘ev’ry naig was ca’d a shoe on. 
 
 The smith and thee gat roaring fou on; 
 
 That at the Lord’s house, ev’n on Sunday, 
 Thou drank wi’ Kirton Jean till Monday. 
 
 She prophesy’d that, late or soon, 
 
 Thou would be found deep drown’d in Doon; 
 Or catch’d wi’ warlocks in the mirk. 
 
 By Alloway’s auld haunted kirk, 
 
 Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet, 
 
 To think how monie counsels sweet. 
 
 How mony lengthen’d, sage advices. 
 
 The husband Trae the wife despises! 
 
 But to our tale; Ae market night, 
 
 Tam had got planted unco right; 
 
 Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, 
 
 Wi’ reamifi^ swats, that drank divinely; 
 
 And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, 
 
 His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony; 
 
 Tam lo’ed him like a vera brither; 
 
 They had been fou for weeks thegither. 
 
 The night drave on wi’ sangs and clatter; 
 And ay the ale was growing better; 
 
 The landlady and Tam grew gracious, 
 
 Wi’ favours, secret, sweet, and precious: 
 The souter tauld his queerest stories; 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 123 
 
 The landlord’s laugh was ready chorus: 
 
 The storm without might rair aiid rustle* 
 
 Tam did na mind the storm a whistle. 
 
 Care, mad to see a man sae happy, 
 
 E’en drown’d himsel’ amang the nappy: 
 
 As be<“.s flee hame wi’ lades o’ tfea.sure, 
 
 The minutes wing’d their way wi’ pleasure; 
 Kings may be blest, but Tain was glorious. 
 O’er, a’, the ills o’ life victorious ! 
 
 But pleasures are' like poppies s,pread. 
 
 You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed 
 Or like the snow-falls in the river, 
 
 A moment white—then melts forever; - 
 Or like the borealis race, , 
 
 That flit ere you can point their place; • 
 Or like th'e rainbow’s lovely.form , 
 Evanishing amid the storm.—;■ 
 Nae man can,tether time or tide;— , 
 
 The hour approaches Tam maun ride; , 
 
 That hour, o’ night’s black arch the key-stahe. 
 That dreary hour he mounts his beast in; ; 
 And-sic a night he taks the road in. , 
 
 As rie*er poor sinner was abroad in. , 
 
 The wind blew as ’twad blawn its last. 
 
 The rattling show’rs rose oh the blast; 
 
 The speedy gleams the darkness swallow’d; . 
 Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow’d: 
 That night, a child might understand, , 
 The Deil had business on his hand. 
 
 Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg, 
 
 A better never lifted leg, 
 
 Tam skelpit on thro’ dub and mire. 
 
124 
 
 BURNS 
 
 Despising wind, and rain, and fire; 
 
 ‘ Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet; 
 Whiles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet 
 Whiles glow’ring round wi’ prudent cares, 
 Lest bogles catch him unawares; 
 Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, 
 
 Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry,— 
 
 By this time he was cross the ford, 
 Whare in the snaw, the chapman smoor’d; 
 And past the birks and meikle stane, 
 
 Whare drunken Charlie brak’s neck-bane; 
 And thro’ the whins, and by the cairn, 
 Whare hunters fand the murder’d bairn; 
 And near the thorn, aboon the well, 
 
 Whare Mungo’s mither hang’d hersel.— 
 Before him Doon pours all his floods; 
 
 The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods; 
 The lightnings flash from pole to pole; 
 
 Near and more near the thunders roll: 
 When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees, 
 Kirk-Alloway seem’d in a bleeze; 
 
 Thro’ ilka bore the beams were glancing; 
 And loud resounded mirth and dancing.— 
 Inspiring bold John Barleycorn! 
 
 What dangers thou canst make us scorn! 
 Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil; 
 
 Wi’ usquebae, we’ll face the devil!— 
 
 The swats sae ream’d in Tammie’s noddle, 
 Fair play, he car’d na deils a boddle. 
 
 But Maggie stood right sair astonish’d. 
 
 Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d, 
 
 "<She ventured forward on the light; 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 125 
 
 And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight! 
 Warlocks and witches in a dance; 
 
 Nae cotillion brent new frae France, 
 
 But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels. 
 Put life and mettle in their heels. 
 
 A winnock-bunker in the east. 
 
 There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast; 
 
 A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large. 
 
 To gie them music was his charge: 
 
 He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl. 
 Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl.— 
 
 Coffins stood round like open presses, 
 
 That shaw’d the dead in their last dresses; 
 And by some devlish cantraip slight 
 Each in its cauld hand held a light,— 
 
 By which heroic Tam was able 
 To note upon the haly table, 
 
 A murderer’s banes in gibbet aims; 
 
 Twa spang-lang, wee, unchristen’d bairns; 
 A thief, new-cutted frae the rape, 
 
 Wi’ his last gasp his gab did gape; 
 
 Five tomahawks, wi’ blude red rusted; 
 
 Five scymitars, wi’ murder crusted; 
 
 A garter, which a babe had strangled; 
 
 A knife, a father’s throat had mangled. 
 Whom his ain son o’ life bereft. 
 
 The grey hairs yet stack to the heft; 
 
 Wi’ mair o’ horrible and awfu’. 
 
 Which ev’n to name wad be unlawfu’. 
 
 As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d, and curious. 
 The mirth and fun grew fast and furious: 
 The*piper loud and louder blew; 
 
126 
 
 BURNS 
 
 The dancers quick and quicker flew;- 
 They reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleekit, 
 Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, 
 
 And coost her duddies to the wark^ ^ 
 
 And linket at it in her sark! 
 
 Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans, 
 A’ plump and strapping in their teens; 
 
 Their sarks, instead o’ creeshie flannen,- • 
 Been snaw-white seventeen hunder iinnen! > ; 
 Thir brfeeks o’ mine, my only pair. 
 
 That ance were plush, o’ gude blue hair* < 
 I wad hae gi’en them off my hurdles, 
 
 For ae blink o’ the bonie burdies 1 
 
 But wither’d beldams, auld and droll, 
 Ringwooddie hags wad spean a foal, 
 
 Lowping and flinging on a crummock, 
 
 I wonder didna turn thy stomach. 
 
 But Tam kend what was what fu’'brawlie. 
 There was ae winsome wench and walie, 
 That night enlisted in the core, 
 
 (Lang after kend on Car rick shore; 
 
 For monie a beast to dead she shot. 
 
 And perish’d monie a bonie boat. 
 
 And shook baith meikle corn and bear, 
 
 And kept the country-side in fear), 
 
 Her cutty sark, o’ Paisley harn. 
 
 That while a lassie she had worn. 
 
 In longitude tho’ sorely scanty. 
 
 It was her best, and she was vauntie.— 
 
 Ah! little kend thy reverend grannie. 
 
 That sark she coft for her wee Nanie, 
 
 Wi’ twa pund Scots (’twas a’ her riches). 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
 127 
 
 Wad ever grac’d a dance of witches! 
 
 But here my muse her wing maun cour; 
 Sic flights are far beyond her pow’r; 
 
 To sing how Nannie lap and flang, 
 
 (A souple jade she was, and strang), 
 
 And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch’d. 
 And thought his very een enrich’d; 
 
 Even Satan glower’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain. 
 And botch’d and blew wi’ might and main: 
 Tin first ae caper, syne anither, 
 
 Tam tint his reason a’ thegither, 
 
 And roars out, “Weel done, Cutty-sark!” 
 And in an instant all was dark: 
 
 And scarcely had he Maggie rallied. 
 
 When out the hellish legion sallied. 
 
 As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke. 
 
 When plundering herds assail their byke; 
 As open pussie’s mortal foes, 
 
 When, pop! she starts before their nose; 
 
 As eager runs the market-crowd, 
 
 When, “Catch the thief!’’ resounds aloud; 
 So Maggie runs, the witches follow, 
 
 Wi’ monie an eldritch skreech and hollow. 
 
 Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairin! 
 In hell thy’ll roast thee like a herrin! 
 
 In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin! 
 
 Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman! 
 
 Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 
 
 And win the key-stane of the brig: 
 
 There at them thou thy tail may toss, 
 
 A running stream they darena cross. 
 
 But ere the key-stane she could make. 
 
128 
 
 BURNS 
 
 The fient a tail she had to shake! 
 
 For Nanie, far before the rest, 
 
 Hard upon noble Maggie prest, 
 
 And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle; 
 
 But little wist she Maggie’s mettle— 
 
 Ae spring brought off her master hale, 
 But left behind her ain gray tail: 
 
 The carlin claught her by the rump. 
 
 And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. 
 
 Now, wha this tale o’ truth shall read, 
 Ilk man and mother’s son, take heed; 
 Whene’er to drink you are inclin’d. 
 
 Or cutty-sarks run in your mind. 
 
 Think, ye may buy the joys o’er dear. 
 Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare. 
 
RARE BOOK 
 COLLECTION 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 AT 
 
 CHAPEL HILL 
 
 Green 
 
 198