The Complete Works. Robert Burns

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      O Goudie! terror of the Whigs,

      Dread of black coats and rev’rend wigs,

      Sour Bigotry, on her last legs,

      Girnin’, looks back,

      Wishin’ the ten Egyptian plagues

      Wad seize you quick.

      Poor gapin’, glowrin’ Superstition,

      Waes me! she’s in a sad condition:

      Fie! bring Black Jock, her state physician,

      To see her water:

      Alas! there’s ground o’ great suspicion

      She’ll ne’er get better.

      Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple,

      But now she’s got an unco ripple;

      Haste, gie her name up i’ the chapel,

      Nigh unto death;

      See, how she fetches at the thrapple,

      An’ gasps for breath.

      Enthusiasm’s past redemption,

      Gaen in a gallopin’ consumption,

      Not a’ the quacks, wi’ a’ their gumption,

      Will ever mend her.

      Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption

      Death soon will end her.

      ’Tis you and Taylor[44] are the chief,

      Wha are to blame for this mischief,

      But gin the Lord’s ain focks gat leave,

      A toom tar-barrel,

      An’ twa red peats wad send relief,

      An’ end the quarrel.

      While briers an’ woodbines budding green,

      An’ paitricks scraichin’ loud at e’en,

      An’ morning poussie whidden seen,

      Inspire my muse,

      This freedom in an unknown frien’

      I pray excuse.

      On Fasten-een we had a rockin’,

      To ca’ the crack and weave our stockin’,

      And there was muckle fun an’ jokin’,

      Ye need na doubt;

      At length we had a hearty yokin’

      At sang about.

      There was ae sang, amang the rest,

      Aboon them a’ it pleas’d me best,

      That some kind husband had addrest

      To some sweet wife;

      It thirl’d the heart-strings thro’ the breast,

      A’ to the life.

      I’ve scarce heard aught describ’d sae weel,

      What gen’rous manly bosoms feel,

      Thought I, “Can this be Pope or Steele,

      Or Beattie’s wark?”

      They told me ’twas an odd kind chiel

      About Muirkirk.

      It pat me fidgin-fain to hear’t,

      And sae about him there I spier’t,

      Then a’ that ken’t him round declar’d

      He had injine,

      That, nane excell’d it, few cam near’t,

      It was sae fine.

      That, set him to a pint of ale,

      An’ either douce or merry tale,

      Or rhymes an’ sangs he’d made himsel’,

      Or witty catches,

      ’Tween Inverness and Tiviotdale,

      He had few matches.

      Then up I gat, an’ swoor an aith,

      Tho’ I should pawn my pleugh and graith,

      Or die a cadger pownie’s death

      At some dyke-back,

      A pint an’ gill I’d gie them baith

      To hear your crack.

      But, first an’ foremost, I should tell,

      Amaist as soon as I could spell,

      I to the crambo-jingle fell,

      Tho’ rude an’ rough,

      Yet crooning to a body’s sel’,

      Does weel eneugh.

      I am nae poet in a sense,

      But just a rhymer, like, by chance,

      An’ hae to learning nae pretence,

      Yet what the matter?

      Whene’er my Muse does on me glance,

      I jingle at her.

      Your critic-folk may cock their nose,

      And say, “How can you e’er propose,

      You, wha ken hardly verse frae prose,

      To mak a sang?”

      But, by your leaves, my learned foes,

      Ye’re may-be wrang.

      What’s a’ your jargon o’ your schools,

      Your Latin names for horns an’ stools;

      If honest nature made you fools,

      What sairs your grammars?

      Ye’d better taen up spades and shools,

      Or knappin-hammers.

      A set o’ dull, conceited hashes,

      Confuse their brains in college classes!

      They gang in stirks and come out asses,

      Plain truth to speak;

      An’ syne they think to climb Parnassus

      By dint o’ Greek!

      Gie me ae spark o’ Nature’s fire!

      That’s a’ the learning I desire;

      Then though I drudge thro’ dub an’ mire

      At pleugh or cart,

      My muse, though hamely in attire,

      May touch the heart.

      O for a spunk o’ Allan’s glee,

      Or Fergusson’s, the bauld and slee,

      Or bright Lapraik’s, my friend to be,

      If I can hit it!

      That would be lear eneugh for me,

      If I could get it.

      Now, sir, if ye hae СКАЧАТЬ