The Complete Works. Robert Burns

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СКАЧАТЬ lee-lang nights, wi’ crabbit leuks

      Pore owre the devil’s pictur’d beuks;

      Stake on a chance a farmer’s stack-yard,

      An’ cheat like onie unhang’d blackguard.

      There’s some exception, man an’ woman;

      But this is Gentry’s life in common.

      By this, the sun was out o’ sight,

      An’ darker gloaming brought the night:

      The bum-clock humm’d wi’ lazy drone;

      The kye stood rowtin i’ the loan;

      When up they gat, and shook their lugs,

      Rejoic’d they were na men, but dogs;

      An’ each took aff his several way,

      Resolv’d to meet some ither day.

      LXVIII. LINES ON MEETING WITH LORD DAER

      [“The first time I saw Robert Burns,” says Dugald Stewart, “was on the 23rd of October, 1786, when he dined at my house in Ayrshire, together with our common friend, John Mackenzie, surgeon in Mauchline, to whom I am indebted for the pleasure of his acquaintance. My excellent and much-lamented friend, the late Basil, Lord Daer, happened to arrive at Catrine the same day, and, by the kindness and frankness of his manners, left an impression on the mind of the poet which was never effaced. The verses which the poet wrote on the occasion are among the most imperfect of his pieces, but a few stanzas may perhaps be a matter of curiosity, both on account of the character to which they relate and the light which they throw on the situation and the feelings of the writer before his work was known to the public.” Basil, Lord Daer, the uncle of the present Earl of Selkirk, was born in the year 1769, at the family seat of St. Mary’s Isle: he distinguished himself early at school, and at college excelled in literature and science; he had a greater regard for democracy than was then reckoned consistent with his birth and rank. He was, when Burns met him, in his twenty-third year; was very tall, something careless in his dress, and had the taste and talent common to his distinguished family. He died in his thirty-third year.]

      This wot ye all whom it concerns,

      I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns,

      October twenty-third,

      A ne’er-to-be-forgotten day,

      Sae far I sprachled up the brae,

      I dinner’d wi’ a Lord.

      I’ve been at druken writers’ feasts,

      Nay, been bitch-fou’ ‘mang godly priests,

      Wi’ rev’rence be it spoken:

      I’ve even join’d the honour’d jorum,

      When mighty squireships of the quorum

      Their hydra drouth did sloken.

      But wi’ a Lord—stand out, my shin!

      A Lord—a Peer—an Earl’s son!—

      Up higher yet, my bonnet!

      And sic a Lord!—lang Scotch ells twa,

      Our Peerage he o’erlooks them a’,

      As I look o’er my sonnet.

      But, oh! for Hogarth’s magic pow’r!

      To show Sir Bardie’s willyart glow’r,

      And how he star’d and stammer’d,

      When goavan, as if led wi’ branks,

      An’ stumpan on his ploughman shanks,

      He in the parlour hammer’d.

      I sidling shelter’d in a nook,

      An’ at his lordship steal’t a look,

      Like some portentous omen;

      Except good sense and social glee,

      An’ (what surpris’d me) modesty,

      I marked nought uncommon.

      I watch’d the symptoms o’ the great,

      The gentle pride, the lordly state,

      The arrogant assuming;

      The fient a pride, nae pride had he,

      Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see,

      Mair than an honest ploughman.

      Then from his lordship I shall learn,

      Henceforth to meet with unconcern

      One rank as weel’s another;

      Nae honest worthy man need care

      To meet with noble youthful Daer,

      For he but meets a brother.

      LXIX. ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH

      [“I enclose you two poems,” said Burns to his friend Chalmers, “which I have carded and spun since I passed Glenbuck. One blank in the Address to Edinburgh, ‘Fair B–,’ is the heavenly Miss Burnet, daughter to Lord Monboddo, at whose house I have had the honour to be more than once. There has not been anything nearly like her, in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness the great Creator has formed, since Milton’s Eve, on the first day of her existence.” Lord Monboddo made himself ridiculous by his speculations on human nature, and acceptable by his kindly manners and suppers in the manner of the ancients, where his viands were spread under ambrosial lights, and his Falernian was wreathed with flowers. At these suppers Burns sometimes made his appearance. The “Address” was first printed in the Edinburgh edition: the poet’s hopes were then high, and his compliments, both to town and people, were elegant and happy.]

      I.

      Edina! Scotia’s darling seat!

      All hail thy palaces and tow’rs,

      Where once beneath a monarch’s feet

      Sat Legislation’s sov’reign pow’rs!

      From marking wildly-scatter’d flow’rs,

      As on the banks of Ayr I stray’d,

      And singing, lone, the ling’ring hours,

      I shelter in thy honour’d shade.

      II.

      Here wealth still swells the golden tide,

      As busy Trade his labour plies;

      There Architecture’s noble pride

      Bids elegance and splendour rise;

      Here Justice, from her native skies,

      High wields her balance and her rod;

      There Learning, with his eagle eyes,

      Seeks Science in her coy abode.

      III.

      Thy sons, Edina! social, kind,

      With open arms the stranger hail;

      Their views enlarg’d, their liberal mind,

      Above the narrow, rural vale;

      Attentive still to sorrow’s wail,

      Or modest merit’s silent claim;

      And never may their sources fail!

      And never envy blot their name!

      IV.

      Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn,

      Gay as the gilded summer sky,

      Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn,

      Dear as the raptur’d thrill of joy!

      Fair Burnet strikes th’ adoring eye,

      Heav’n’s beauties on my fancy shine;

      I see the Sire of Love on high,

      And own his work indeed divine!

      V.

      There, СКАЧАТЬ