The Complete Works. Robert Burns

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      I.

      O ye wha are sae guid yoursel’,

      Sae pious and sae holy,

      Ye’ve nought to do but mark and tell

      Your neibor’s fauts and folly!

      Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,

      Supply’d wi’ store o’ water,

      The heaped happer’s ebbing still,

      And still the clap plays clatter.

      II.

      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.

      III.

      Ye see your state wi’ theirs compar’d,

      And shudder at the niffer,

      But cast 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.

      IV.

      Think, when your castigated pulse

      Gies now and then a wallop,

      What ragings must his veins convulse,

      That still eternal gallop:

      Wi’ wind and tide fair i’ your tail,

      Right on ye scud your sea-way;

      But in the teeth o’ baith to sail,

      It makes an unco lee-way.

      V.

      See social life and glee sit down,

      All joyous and unthinking,

      ’Till, quite transmugrify’d, they’re grown

      Debauchery and drinking;

      O would they stay to calculate

      Th’ eternal consequences;

      Or your more dreaded hell to state,

      D—mnation of expenses!

      VI.

      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.

      VII.

      Then gently scan your brother man,

      Still gentler sister woman;

      Though they may gang a kennin’ wrang,

      To step aside is human:

      One point must still be greatly dark,

      The moving why they do it:

      And just as lamely can ye mark,

      How far perhaps they rue it.

      VIII.

      Who made the heart, ’tis He alone

      Decidedly can try us,

      He knows each chord—its various tone,

      Each spring—its various bias:

      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.

      ‘In vain the burns cam’ down like waters,

      An acre braid.’

      What a picture of a flooded burn! any other poet would have given us a long description: Burns dashes it down at once in a style so graphic no one can mistake it.

      ‘Perhaps upon his mouldering breast

      Some spitefu’ moorfowl bigs her nest.’

      Match that sentence who can.”]

      Has auld Kilmarnock seen the deil?

      Or great M’Kinlay[50] thrawn his heel?

      Or Robinson[51] again grown weel,

      To preach an’ read?

      “Na, waur than a’!” cries ilka chiel,

      Tam Samson’s dead!

      Kilmarnock lang may grunt an’ grane,

      An’ sigh, an’ sob, an’ greet her lane,

      An’ cleed her bairns, man, wife, an wean,

      In mourning weed;

      To death, she’s dearly paid the kane,

      Tam Samson’s dead!

      The brethren o’ the mystic level

      May hing their head in woefu’ bevel,

      While by their nose the tears will revel,

      Like ony bead;

      Death’s gien the lodge an unco devel,

      Tam Samson’s dead!

      When Winter muffles up his cloak,

      And binds the mire СКАЧАТЬ