Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, or nations to adore you, O, A cheerful honest-hearted clown I will prefer before you, O. THE DEATH AND DYING WORDS OF POOR MAILIE, THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE: AN UNCO MOURNFU' TALE. The following poem took its rise in a simple incident thus related by Gilbert Burns. "He had, partly by way of frolic, bought a ewe and two lambs from a neighbor, and she was tethered in a field adjoining the house at Lochlea. He and I were going out with our teams, and our two younger brothers to drive for us, at mid-day, when Hugh Wilson, a curious-looking, awkward boy, clad in plaiding, came to us with much anxiety in his face, with the information that the ewe had entangled herself in the tether, and was lying in the ditch. Robert was much tickled with Hughoc's appearance and posture on the occasion. Poor Mailie was set to rights; and when we returned from the plough in the evening, he repeated to me her Death and Dying Words pretty much in the way they now stand." As Mailie and her lambs thegither, Upon her cloot she coost a hitch, When Hughoc1 he cam doytin' by. walking stupidly Wi' glowering een and lifted hands, Poor Hughoc like a statue stands; He saw her days were near-hand ended, 'Oh thou, whose lamentable face Appears to mourn my woefu' case! My dying words attentive hear, And bear them to my master dear. Tell him, if e'er again he keep staring money drive 1 A neighbor herd-callan. B. In a copy of the poem in the poet's handwriting, possessed by Miss Grace Aiken, Ayr, a more descriptive note is here given: "Hughoc was an odd, glowran, gapin' callan, about three-fourths as wise as other folk." 'Tell him he was a master kin', ‘Oh, bid him save their harmless lives Wi' teats o' hay, and ripps o' corn. 'And may they never learn the gaets Of other vile, wanrestfu' pets; foxes provide for To slink through slaps, and reave and steal So may they, like their great forbears, tend handfuls ways restless gaps ancestors And bairns greet for them when they're dead. 'My poor toop-lamb, my son and heir, Oh, bid him breed him up wi' care; And if he live to be a beast, To pit some havins in his breast! 6 And warn him, what I winna name, To stay content wi' yowes at hame; manners hoofs senseless And neist my yowie, silly thing, Gude keep thee frae a tether string; encounter But aye keep mind to moop and mell mump-associate Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel. 'And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath I lea'e my blessin' wi' you baith: And when you think upo' your mither, 'Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail To tell my master a' my tale; And bid him burn his cursed tether, And, for thy pains, thou's get my blether.' This said, poor Mailie turned her head, POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY. LAMENT in rhyme, lament in prose, Past a' remead; The last sad cape-stane of his woes Poor Mailie's dead! It's no the loss o' warl's gear, That could sae bitter draw the tear, The mourning weed: He's lost a friend and neibor dear, ; Through a' the toun she trotted by him sorrowful A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him I wat she was a sheep o' sense, I'll say't she never brak a fence, Through thievish greed. Our bardie, lanely, keeps the spence discretion inner room Or, if he wanders up the howe, valley Her living image in her yowe, Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe, hillock For bits o' bread; And down the briny pearls rowe For Mailie dead. She was nae get o' moorland tips, Wi' tawted ket, and hairy hips, rams matted fleece |