The Complete Works. Robert Burns

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      In this strange land, this uncouth clime,

      A land unknown to prose or rhyme;

      Where words ne’er crost the muse’s heckles,

      Nor limpet in poetic shackles:

      A land that prose did never view it,

      Except when drunk he stacher’t thro’ it,

      Here, ambush’d by the chimla cheek,

      Hid in an atmosphere of reek,

      I hear a wheel thrum i’ the neuk,

      I hear it—for in vain I leuk.—

      The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel,

      Enhusked by a fog infernal:

      Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,

      I sit and count my sins by chapters;

      For life and spunk like ither Christians,

      I’m dwindled down to mere existence,

      Wi’ nae converse but Gallowa’ bodies,

      Wi’ nae kend face but Jenny Geddes.[75]

      Jenny, my Pegasean pride!

      Dowie she saunters down Nithside,

      And ay a westlin leuk she throws,

      While tears hap o’er her auld brown nose!

      Was it for this, wi’ canny care,

      Thou bure the bard through many a shire?

      At howes or hillocks never stumbled,

      And late or early never grumbled?—

      O had I power like inclination,

      I’d heeze thee up a constellation,

      To canter with the Sagitarre,

      Or loup the ecliptic like a bar;

      Or turn the pole like any arrow;

      Or, when auld Phœbus bids good-morrow,

      Down the zodiac urge the race,

      And cast dirt on his godship’s face;

      For I could lay my bread and kail

      He’d ne’er cast saut upo’ thy tail.—

      Wi’ a’ this care and a’ this grief,

      And sma,’ sma’ prospect of relief,

      And nought but peat reek i’ my head,

      How can I write what ye can read?—

      Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o’ June,

      Ye’ll find me in a better tune;

      But till we meet and weet our whistle,

      Tak this excuse for nae epistle.

      Whose is that noble dauntless brow?

      And whose that eye of fire?

      And whose that generous princely mien,

      E’en rooted foes admire?

      Stranger! to justly show that brow,

      And mark that eye of fire,

      Would take His hand, whose vernal tints

      His other works inspire.

      Bright as a cloudless summer sun,

      With stately port he moves;

      His guardian seraph eyes with awe

      The noble ward he loves—

      Among th’ illustrious Scottish sons

      That chief thou may’st discern;

      Mark Scotia’s fond returning eye—

      It dwells upon Glencairn.

      For Lords or Kings I dinna mourn,

      E’en let them die—for that they’re born,

      But oh! prodigious to reflec’!

      A Towmont, Sirs, is gane to wreck!

      O Eighty-eight, in thy sma’ space

      What dire events ha’e taken place!

      Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us!

      In what a pickle thou hast left us!

      The Spanish empire’s tint a-head,

      An’ my auld toothless Bawtie’s dead;

      The tulzie’s sair ’tween Pitt and Fox,

      And our guid wife’s wee birdie cocks;

      The tane is game, a bluidie devil,

      But to the hen-birds unco civil:

      The tither’s something dour o’ treadin’,

      But better stuff ne’er claw’d a midden—

      Ye ministers, come mount the pu’pit,

      An’ cry till ye be hearse an’ roupet,

      For Eighty-eight he wish’d you weel,

      An’ gied you a’ baith gear an’ meal;

      E’en mony a plack, and mony a peck,

      Ye ken yoursels, for little feck!

      Ye bonnie lasses, dight your e’en,

      For some o’ you ha’e tint a frien’;

      In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was ta’en,

      What ye’ll ne’er ha’e to gie again.

      Observe the very nowt an’ sheep,

      How dowf and dowie now they creep;

      Nay, even the yirth itsel’ does cry,

      For Embro’ wells are grutten dry.

      O Eighty-nine, thou’s but a bairn,

      An’ no owre auld, I hope, to learn!

      Thou beardless boy, I pray tak’ care,

      Thou now has got thy daddy’s chair,

      Nae hand-cuff’d, mizl’d, hap-shackl’d Regent,

      But, like himsel’ a full free agent.

      Be sure ye follow out the plan

      Nae waur than he did, honest man!

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