The dearest comfort o' their lives,
Their grushie weans an' faithfu' wives;
The prattling things are just their pride,
That sweetens a' their fireside.
An' whyles twalpennie worth o' nappy
Can mak' the bodies unco happy;
They lay aside their private cares,
To mind the Kirk and State affairs:
They'll talk o' patronage and priests,
Wi' kindling fury in their breasts,
Or tell what new taxation's comin',
An' ferlie at the folk in Lon❜on.
As bleak-faced Hallowmass returns,
They get the jovial, ranting kirns,
When rural life, o' every station,
Unite in common recreation;
Love blinks, Wit slaps, an' social Mirth
Forgets there's care upo' the earth.
That merry day the year begins,
They bar the door on frosty winds;
The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream,
An' sheds a heart-inspiring steam;
The luntin' pipe, an' sneeshin-mill,
Are handed round wi' right guid will;
The cantie auld folks crackin' crouse,
The young anes rantin' through the
house,-
My heart has been sae fain to see them,
That I for joy ha'e barkit wi' them.
Still it's owre true that ye ha'e said,
Sic
game is now owre aften played.
There's monie a creditable stock
O' decent, honest, fawsont fo'k,
Are riven out baith root and branch,
Some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench,
Wha thinks to knit himsel' the faster
In favour wi' some gentle master,
Wha, aiblins, thrang a-parliamentin',
For Britain's guid his saul indentin'-
Haith, lad, ye little ken about it :
For Britain's guid !—guid faith, I doubt
it !
Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him,
An' saying aye or no's they bid him :
At operas an' plays parading,
Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading;
Or maybe, in a frolic daft,
To Hague or Calais takes a waft,
To make a tour, and tak' a whirl,
To learn bon ton an' see the worl'.
There, at Vienna or Versailles,
He rives his father's auld entails!
Or by Madrid he takes the rout,
To thrum guitars, and fecht wi' nowt;
Or down Italian vista startles,
Wh-re-hunting amang groves o' myrtles:
Then bouses drumly German water,
To mak' himsel' look fair and fatter,
And clear the consequential sorrows,
Love-gifts of Carnival signoras.
For Britain's guid!-for her destruction!
Wi' dissipation, feud, an' faction.
Hech, man! dear sirs! is that the gate
They waste sae mony a braw estate?
Are we sae foughten an' haràssed
For fear to gang that gate at last?
O would they stay aback frae courts,
An' please themsel's wi' country sports,
It would for every ane be better,
The Laird, the Tenant, an' the Cotter!
For thae frank, rantin', ramblin' billies,
Fient haet o' them 's ill-hearted fellows;
Except for breaking o'er their timmer,
Or speaking lightly o' their limmer,
Or shootin' o' a hare or moor-cock,
The ne'er a bit they 're ill to poor folk.
But will ye tell me, Master Cæsar,
Sure great folks' life 's a life o' pleasure!
Nae cauld nor hunger e'er can steer them,
The vera thought o't needna fear them.
The ladies arm-in-arm in clusters,
As great and gracious a' as sisters;
But hear their absent thoughts o' ither,
They're a' run de'ils an' jads thegither.
Whyles, o'er the wee bit cup an' platie,
They sip the scandal potion pretty;
Or lee-lang nights, wi' crabbit leuks,
Pore owre the devil's pictured beuks;
Lord, man, were ye but whyles whare I Stake on a chance a farmer's stackyard,
The gentles ye wad ne'er envy 'em.
It's true, they need na starve or sweat,
Through winter's cauld, or simmer's
heat;
They've nae sair wark to craze their banes,
An' fill auld age wi' grips an' granes:
But human bodies are sic fools,
For a' their colleges and schools,
That when nae real ills perplex them,
They mak' enow themsel's to vex them;
An' aye the less they ha'e to sturt them,
In like proportion less will hurt them;
A country fellow at the pleugh,
His acres tilled, he 's right eneugh;
A country girl at her wheel,
Her dizzens done, she's unco weel:
But Gentlemen, an' Ladies warst,
Wi' ev'ndown want o' wark are curst.
They loiter, lounging, lank, an' lazy;
Though de'il haet hails them, yet uneasy;
Their days insipid, dull, an' tasteless :
Their nights unquiet, lang, an' restless;
An' e'en their sports, their balls, an'
An' cheat like onie unhanged black
There's some exception, man an' woman; But this is Gentry's life in common.
By this, the sun was out o' sight,
An' darker gloaming brought the night :
The bum-clock hummed wi' lazy drone;
The kye stood rowtin' i' the loan;
When up they gat, and shook their lugs,
Rejoiced they were na men, but dogs;
An' each took aff his several way,
Resolved to meet some ither day.
[Penned in great anguish of mind and heart during the summer of 1786, when the Poet's brain was nearly distraught about Jean Armour, her father having destroyed their left-handed marriage-lines and denied the wrong-doer all chance of making the only reparation then in any way possible.]
OPPRESSED with grief, oppressed with
A burden more than I can bear,
I sit me down and sigh:
O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
Dim backward as I cast my view,
What sickening scenes appear! What sorrows yet may pierce me through, Too justly I may fear!
Still caring, despairing,
Must be my bitter doom;
My woes here shall close ne'er,
But with the closing tomb!
Happy, ye sons of busy life,
Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard!
Even when the wished end 's denied,
Yet while the busy means are plied,
They bring their own reward:
Whilst I, a hope-abandoned wight,
Unfitted with an aim,
Meet every sad returning night
And joyless morn the same;
You, bustling, and justling,
Forget each grief and pain;
I, listless, yet restless,
Find every prospect vain.
How blest the Solitary's lot,
Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot,
Within the humble cell,
The cavern wild with tangling roots,
Sits o'er his newly-gathered fruits,
Beside his crystal well!
Or, haply, to his evening thought,
By unfrequented stream,
The ways of men are distant brought,
A faint collected dream;
While praising, and raising
His thoughts to heaven on high,
As wandering, meandering,
He views the solemn sky.
Than I, no lonely hermit placed
Where never human footstep traced,
Less fit to play the part,
The lucky moment to improve,
And just to stop, and just to move,
With self-respecting art:
But ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys,
Which I too keenly taste,
The Solitary can despise,
Can want, and yet be blest!
He needs not, he heeds not,
Or human love or hate,
Whilst I here must cry here,
At perfidy ingrate !
Oh! enviable, early days,
When dancing, thoughtless, Pleasure's
To care, to guilt unknown!
How ill exchanged for riper times,
To feel the follies, or the crimes,
Of others, or my own!
Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish;
The losses, the crosses,
That active man engage!
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim-declining age!
[Burns caught something more than a mere glimpse here of the splendour and perpetuity of his fame as a national poet-as, in fact, the National Poet of Scotland. One reads this poem
as one reads the Horatian "Legi monumentum ære perennius," with a sense that the poet's gaze penetrated piercingly and exultantly into the future. As Henry Mackenzie shrank not from saying of these lofty strains of the Ploughman upon the very morrow of their publication, "they are solemn, and sublime with that rapt and inspired melancholy in which the poet lifts his eye above this visible diurnal sphere,' marvelling not in the least to see the genius of his native land, the Muse of Caledonia, entering his lowly cabin, to hear himself apostrophized by her, 'All hail, my own inspired bard !' to feel the
holly wreath of his coronation by her, rustling To swear by a' yon starry roof, round his head, to know in regard to his own passions, as he strongly puts it, that the very light that led astray, was light from heaven!"
THE sun had closed the winter day, The Curlers quat their roaring play, An' hungered maukin ta'en her way To kail-yards green, While faithless snaws ilk step betray Whare she has been.
The thresher's weary flingin'-tree
The lee-lang day had tired me;
And whan the day had closed his e'e,
Far i' the west,
Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie,
I gaed to rest.
There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek,
I sat and eyed the spewing reek,
That filled, wi' hoast-provoking smeek,
The auld clay biggin';
An' heard the restless rattons squeak
About the riggin'.
All in this mottie, misty clime,
I backward mused on wasted time,
How I had spent my youthfu' prime,
An' done nae thing,
But stringin' blethers up in rhyme,
For fools to sing.
Had I to guid advice but harkit,
I might, by this, ha e led a market,
Or strutted in a bank an' clarkit
My cash-account: While here, half-mad, half-fed, halfsarkit,
I started, muttering, blockhead! coof! And heaved on high my waukit loof,
Or some rash aith, That I, henceforth, would be rhymeproof
Till my last breath
When, click! the string the snick did draw;
And, jee! the door gaed to the wa';
An' by my ingle-lowe I saw,
Now bleezin' bright,
A tight, outlandish hizzie, braw,
Come full in sight.
Ye need na doubt, I held my whisht;
The infant aith, half-formed, was crusht;
I glowred as eerie 's I'd been dusht
In some wild glen;
When sweet, like modest worth, she
blush'd,
Green, slender, leaf-clad holly boughs
Were twisted, gracefu', round her brows;
I took her for some Scottish Muse,
By that same token;
An' come to stop those reckless vows,
Wou'd soon been broken.
A "hair-brained, sentimental trace"
Was strongly marked in her face;
A wildly witty, rustic grace
Shone full upon her;
Her eye, ev'n turned on empty space,
Beamed keen with Honour.
Down flowed her robe, a tartan sheen,
Till half a leg was scrimply seen;
And such a leg! my bonnie Jean
Could only peer it;
Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean,
Nane else came near it,
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