The Complete Works. Robert Burns

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      IV. FOR GAVIN HAMILTON

      [These lines allude to the persecution which Hamilton endured for presuming to ride on Sunday, and say, “damn it,” in the presence of the minister of Mauchline.]

      The poor man weeps—here Gavin sleeps,

      Whom canting wretches blam’d:

      But with such as he, where’er he be,

      May I be sav’d or damn’d!

      V. ON WEE JOHNNY. HIC JACET WEE JOHNNY.

      [Wee Johnny was John Wilson, printer of the Kilmarnock edition of Burns’s Poems: he doubted the success of the speculation, and the poet punished him in these lines, which he printed unaware of their meaning.]

      Whoe’er thou art, O reader, know,

      That death has murder’d Johnny!

      An’ here his body lies fu’ low—

      For saul he ne’er had ony.

      VI. ON JOHN DOVE, INNKEEPER, MAUCHLINE.

      [John Dove kept the Whitefoord Arms in Mauchline: his religion is made to consist of a comparative appreciation of the liquors he kept.]

      Here lies Johnny Pidgeon;

      What was his religion?

      Wha e’er desires to ken,

      To some other warl’

      Maun follow the carl,

      For here Johnny Pidgeon had nane!

      Strong ale was ablution—

      Small beer, persecution,

      A dram was memento mori;

      But a full flowing bowl

      Was the saving his soul,

      And port was celestial glory.

      VII. ON A WAG IN MAUCHLINE

      [This laborious and useful wag was the “Dear Smith, thou sleest pawkie thief,” of one of the poet’s finest epistles: he died in the West Indies.]

      Lament him, Mauchline husbands a’,

      He aften did assist ye;

      For had ye staid whole weeks awa,

      Your wives they ne’er had missed ye.

      Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye press

      To school in bands thegither,

      O tread ye lightly on his grass,—

      Perhaps he was your father.

      VIII. ON A CELEBRATED RULING ELDER

      [Souter Hood obtained the distinction of this Epigram by his impertinent inquiries into what he called the moral delinquencies of Burns.]

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      NOTES

      1

      Dr. Young.

      2

      A neibor herd-callan.

      3

      VARIATION.

      ‘She was nae get o’ runted rams,

      Wi’ woo’ like goats an’ legs like trams;

      She was the flower o’ Farlie lambs,

      A famous breed!

      Now Robin, greetin, chews the hams

      O’ Mailie dead.’

      4

      Ramsay.

      5

      A peculiar sort of whiskey.

      6

      Buchan’s Domestic Medicine.

      7

      The grave-digger.

      8

      The fore-horse on the left-hand in the plough.

      9

      The hindmost on the left-hand in the plough.

      10

      Kilmarnock.

      11

      The hindmost horse on the right-hand in the plough.

      12

      A street so called, which faces the tent in Mauchline.

      13

      Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

      14

      Alluding to a scoffing ballad which was made on the admission of the late reverend and worthy Mr. Lindsay to the Laigh Kirk.

      15

      Genesis, ix. 22.

      16

      Numbers, xxv. 8.

      17

      Exodus, iv. 25.

      18

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