The Complete Works. Robert Burns

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      Where’er thou gaed.

      The sma’, droop-rumpl’t, hunter cattle,

      Might aiblins waur’t thee for a brattle;

      But sax Scotch miles thou try’t their mettle,

      An’ gar’t them whaizle:

      Nae whip nor spur, but just a whattle

      O’ saugh or hazle.

      Thou was a noble fittie-lan’,

      As e’er in tug or tow was drawn:

      Aft thee an’ I, in aught hours gaun,

      In guid March-weather,

      Hae turn’d sax rood beside our han’

      For days thegither.

      Thou never braindg’t, an’ fetch’t, an’ fliskit,

      But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit,

      An’ spread abreed thy weel-fill’d brisket,

      Wi’ pith an’ pow’r,

      ’Till spiritty knowes wad rair’t and risket,

      An’ slypet owre.

      When frosts lay lang, an’ snaws were deep,

      An’ threaten’d labour back to keep,

      I gied thy cog a wee-bit heap

      Aboon the timmer;

      I ken’d my Maggie wad na sleep

      For that, or simmer.

      In cart or car thou never reestit;

      The steyest brae thou wad hae fac’t it;

      Thou never lap, an’ sten’t, an’ breastit,

      Then stood to blaw;

      But just thy step a wee thing hastit,

      Thou snoov’t awa.

      My pleugh is now thy bairntime a’;

      Four gallant brutes as e’er did draw;

      Forbye sax mae, I’ve sell’t awa,

      That thou hast nurst:

      They drew me thretteen pund an’ twa,

      The vera worst.

      Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought,

      An, wi’ the weary warl’ fought!

      An’ monie an anxious day, I thought

      We wad be beat!

      Yet here to crazy age we’re brought,

      Wi’ something yet.

      And think na, my auld, trusty servan’,

      That now perhaps thou’s less deservin,

      An’ thy auld days may end in starvin,

      For my last fow,

      A heapit stimpart, I’ll reserve ane

      Laid by for you.

      We’ve worn to crazy years thegither;

      We’ll toyte about wi’ ane anither;

      Wi’ tentie care I’ll flit thy tether,

      To some hain’d rig,

      Whare ye may nobly rax your leather,

      Wi’ sma’ fatigue.

      VIII. TO A HAGGIS

      [The vehement nationality of this poem is but a small part of its merit. The haggis of the north is the minced pie of the south; both are characteristic of the people: the ingredients which compose the former are all of Scottish growth, including the bag which contains them; the ingredients of the latter are gathered chiefly from the four quarters of the globe: the haggis is the triumph of poverty, the minced pie the triumph of wealth.]

      IX. A PRAYER, UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT ANGUISH

      [“There was a certain period of my life,” says Burns, “that my spirit was broke by repeated losses and disasters, which threatened and indeed effected the ruin of my fortune. My body, too, was attacked by the most dreadful distemper, a hypochondria or confirmed melancholy. In this wretched state, the recollection of which makes me yet shudder, I hung my harp on the willow-trees, except in some lucid intervals, in one of which I composed the following.”]