The Canongate Burns. Robert Burns

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ imaginary water-spirits, ford

      70 By your direction,

      An’ nighted Trav’llers are allur’d

      To their destruction.

      An’ aft your moss-traversing Spunkies often, bog-, demons

      Decoy the wight that late an’ drunk is: fellow

      75 The bleezan, curst, mischievous monkies

      Delude his eyes,

      Till in some miry slough he sunk is, dirty hole

      Ne’er mair to rise. more

      When MASONS’ mystic word an’ grip

      80 In storms an’ tempests raise you up,

      Some cock or cat your rage maun stop, shall

      Or, strange to tell!

      The youngest Brother ye wad whip would

      Aff straught to Hell. off straight

      85 Lang syne in Eden’s bonie yard, long ago

      When youthfu’ lovers first were pair’d,

      An’ all the Soul of Love they shar’d,

      The raptur’d hour,

      Sweet on the fragrant flow’ry swaird, grassy edge

      90 In shady bow’r:

      Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog! old, sly door opener

      Ye cam to Paradise incog, came, disguised

      An’ play’d on man a cursed brogue trick

      (Black be your fa’!), fall

      95 An’ gied the infant warld a shog, gave, world, shake

      ’Maist ruin’d a’. almost

      D’ye mind that day when in a bizz flurry/bustle

      Wi’ reeket duds, an’ reestet gizz, smoky clothes, scorched wig

      Ye did present your smoutie phiz smutty face

      100 ’Mang better folk;

      An’ sklented on the man of Uzz squinted at Job

      Your spitefu’ joke?

      An’ how ye gat him i’ your thrall, got, spell

      An’ brak him out o’ house an’ hal’, broke

      105 While scabs an’ blotches did him gall,

      Wi’ bitter claw;

      An’ lows’d his ill-tongu’d wicked Scawl — slackened, scolding wife

      Was warst ava? worst of all

      But a’ your doings to rehearse,

      110 Your wily snares an’ fechtin fierce, fighting

      Sin’ that day MICHAEL did you pierce

      Down to this time,

      Wad ding a Lallan tongue, or Erse, would, beat, Lowland Scots, Irish

      In Prose or Rhyme.

      115 An’ now, auld Cloots, I ken ye’re thinkan, old, know

      A certain Bardie’s rantin, drinkin,

      Some luckless hour will send him linkan, hurrying

      To your black pit; Hell

      But, faith! he’ll turn a corner jinkin, dodging

      120 An’ cheat you yet.

      But fare-you-weel, auld Nickie-ben! old

      O wad ye tak a thought an’ men’! would, mend

      Ye aiblins might — I dinna ken — perhaps, do not know

      Still hae a stake: have

      125 I’m wae to think upo’ yon den, sad

      Ev’n for your sake.

      Burns mentions to John Richmond on 17th February 1786 that he had recently completed this poem. It is normally dated to the winter of 1785–6. A poem of this length Burns might have turned out quickly, so it is probably one of the fruits of his intense writing campaign leading to publication of the Kilmarnock edition.

      This poem is now generally accepted as a relatively light-weight piece of near comic knockabout as Burns mocks the allegedly fast-fading figure of the Devil from his hitherto central role in Scottish theology and folk-lore. In his essay ‘Robert Burns, Master of Scottish Poetry’ (Uncollected Scottish Criticism, ed. Noble (London), pp. 199–200), Edwin Muir analyses this poem as the centre-piece of his persuasive argument that during the eighteenth century enlightened, improving, secularising Scotland had lost both its theological passion and its sense of supernatural mystery integral to its older poetry:

      … two centuries of religious terrors had faded under the touch of reason and enlightenment, and the mysterious problems of election and damnation, had turned into amusing doggerel:

      O Thou wha in the Heavens dost dwell,

      Wha, as it pleases best thysel’;

      Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell,

      A’ for thy glory,

      And no for any guid or ill

      They’ve done afore thee!

      Calvinism, once feared as a power or hated as a superstition, became absurd under the attack of common reason. The growing powers of the Enlightenment encouraged the change in the universities, the churches, in popular debate, and among the people. The ideas of liberty and equality did their part; Scotland became a place where a man was a man for a’ that; the new humanistic attitude to religion led people to believe that ‘The hert’s aye the pairt aye that mak’s us richt or wrang.’ The story of the Fall became a simple story of human misfortune to two young people whose intentions had been so good, ‘Lang syne in Eden’s bonnie yard’.

      Then you, ye auld sneck-drawing dog!

      Ye cam to Paradise incog.

      And played on a man a curse brogue

      (Black be your fa!)

      An’ gled the infant world a shog

      Maist ruined a’.

      Muir further thinks that this new СКАЧАТЬ