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Best Famous Ban Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Ban poems. This is a select list of the best famous Ban poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Ban poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of ban poems.

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Written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning | Create an image from this poem

A Musical Instrument

WHAT was he doing the great god Pan  
Down in the reeds by the river? 
Spreading ruin and scattering ban  
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat  
And breaking the golden lilies afloat 5 
With the dragon-fly on the river.
He tore out a reed the great god Pan From the deep cool bed of the river; The limpid water turbidly ran And the broken lilies a-dying lay 10 And the dragon-fly had fled away Ere he brought it out of the river.
High on the shore sat the great god Pan While turbidly flow'd the river; And hack'd and hew'd as a great god can 15 With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed To prove it fresh from the river.
He cut it short did the great god Pan (How tall it stood in the river!) 20 Then drew the pith like the heart of a man Steadily from the outside ring And notch'd the poor dry empty thing In holes as he sat by the river.
'This is the way ' laugh'd the great god Pan 25 (Laugh'd while he sat by the river) 'The only way since gods began To make sweet music they could succeed.
' Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed He blew in power by the river.
30 Sweet sweet sweet O Pan! Piercing sweet by the river! Blinding sweet O great god Pan! The sun on the hill forgot to die And the lilies revived and the dragon-fly 35 Came back to dream on the river.
Yet half a beast is the great god Pan To laugh as he sits by the river Making a poet out of a man: The true gods sigh for the cost and pain¡ª 40 For the reed which grows nevermore again As a reed with the reeds of the river.


Written by Imamu Amiri Baraka | Create an image from this poem

Wise I

    WHYS (Nobody Knows
    The Trouble I Seen)
    Traditional

If you ever find
yourself, some where
lost and surrounded
by enemies
who won't let you
speak in your own language
who destroy your statues
& instruments, who ban
your omm bomm ba boom
then you are in trouble
deep trouble
they ban your
own boom ba boom
you in deep deep
trouble

humph!

probably take you several hundred years
to get 
out!
Written by William Blake | Create an image from this poem

London

 I wander thro' each charter'd street.
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow A mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man.
In every Infants cry of fear.
In every voice; in every ban.
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear How the Chimney-sweepers cry Every blackening Church appalls.
And the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls But most thro' midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlots curse Blasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
Written by Edwin Arlington Robinson | Create an image from this poem

Lancelot

 Gawaine, aware again of Lancelot 
In the King’s garden, coughed and followed him; 
Whereat he turned and stood with folded arms 
And weary-waiting eyes, cold and half-closed— 
Hard eyes, where doubts at war with memories
Fanned a sad wrath.
“Why frown upon a friend? Few live that have too many,” Gawaine said, And wished unsaid, so thinly came the light Between the narrowing lids at which he gazed.
“And who of us are they that name their friends?” Lancelot said.
“They live that have not any.
Why do they live, Gawaine? Ask why, and answer.
” Two men of an elected eminence, They stood for a time silent.
Then Gawaine, Acknowledging the ghost of what was gone, Put out his hand: “Rather, I say, why ask? If I be not the friend of Lancelot, May I be nailed alive along the ground And emmets eat me dead.
If I be not The friend of Lancelot, may I be fried With other liars in the pans of hell.
What item otherwise of immolation Your Darkness may invent, be it mine to endure And yours to gloat on.
For the time between, Consider this thing you see that is my hand.
If once, it has been yours a thousand times; Why not again? Gawaine has never lied To Lancelot; and this, of all wrong days— This day before the day when you go south To God knows what accomplishment of exile— Were surely an ill day for lies to find An issue or a cause or an occasion.
King Ban your father and King Lot my father, Were they alive, would shake their heads in sorrow To see us as we are, and I shake mine In wonder.
Will you take my hand, or no? Strong as I am, I do not hold it out For ever and on air.
You see—my hand.
” Lancelot gave his hand there to Gawaine, Who took it, held it, and then let it go, Chagrined with its indifference.
“Yes, Gawaine, I go tomorrow, and I wish you well; You and your brothers, Gareth, Gaheris,— And Agravaine; yes, even Agravaine, Whose tongue has told all Camelot and all Britain More lies than yet have hatched of Modred’s envy.
You say that you have never lied to me, And I believe it so.
Let it be so.
For now and always.
Gawaine, I wish you well.
Tomorrow I go south, as Merlin went, But not for Merlin’s end.
I go, Gawaine, And leave you to your ways.
There are ways left.
” “There are three ways I know, three famous ways, And all in Holy Writ,” Gawaine said, smiling: “The snake’s way and the eagle’s way are two, And then we have a man’s way with a maid— Or with a woman who is not a maid.
Your late way is to send all women scudding, To the last flash of the last cramoisy, While you go south to find the fires of God.
Since we came back again to Camelot From our immortal Quest—I came back first— No man has known you for the man you were Before you saw whatever ’t was you saw, To make so little of kings and queens and friends Thereafter.
Modred? Agravaine? My brothers? And what if they be brothers? What are brothers, If they be not our friends, your friends and mine? You turn away, and my words are no mark On you affection or your memory? So be it then, if so it is to be.
God save you, Lancelot; for by Saint Stephen, You are no more than man to save yourself.
” “Gawaine, I do not say that you are wrong, Or that you are ill-seasoned in your lightness; You say that all you know is what you saw, And on your own averment you saw nothing.
Your spoken word, Gawaine, I have not weighed In those unhappy scales of inference That have no beam but one made out of hates And fears, and venomous conjecturings; Your tongue is not the sword that urges me Now out of Camelot.
Two other swords There are that are awake, and in their scabbards Are parching for the blood of Lancelot.
Yet I go not away for fear of them, But for a sharper care.
You say the truth, But not when you contend the fires of God Are my one fear,—for there is one fear more.
Therefore I go.
Gawaine, I wish you well.
” “Well-wishing in a way is well enough; So, in a way, is caution; so, in a way, Are leeches, neatherds, and astrologers.
Lancelot, listen.
Sit you down and listen: You talk of swords and fears and banishment.
Two swords, you say; Modred and Agravaine, You mean.
Had you meant Gaheris and Gareth, Or willed an evil on them, I should welcome And hasten your farewell.
But Agravaine Hears little what I say; his ears are Modred’s.
The King is Modred’s father, and the Queen A prepossession of Modred’s lunacy.
So much for my two brothers whom you fear, Not fearing for yourself.
I say to you, Fear not for anything—and so be wise And amiable again as heretofore; Let Modred have his humor, and Agravaine His tongue.
The two of them have done their worst, And having done their worst, what have they done? A whisper now and then, a chirrup or so In corners,—and what else? Ask what, and answer.
” Still with a frown that had no faith in it, Lancelot, pitying Gawaine’s lost endeavour To make an evil jest of evidence, Sat fronting him with a remote forbearance— Whether for Gawaine blind or Gawaine false, Or both, or neither, he could not say yet, If ever; and to himself he said no more Than he said now aloud: “What else, Gawaine? What else, am I to say? Then ruin, I say; Destruction, dissolution, desolation, I say,—should I compound with jeopardy now.
For there are more than whispers here, Gawaine: The way that we have gone so long together Has underneath our feet, without our will, Become a twofold faring.
Yours, I trust, May lead you always on, as it has led you, To praise and to much joy.
Mine, I believe, Leads off to battles that are not yet fought, And to the Light that once had blinded me.
When I came back from seeing what I saw, I saw no place for me in Camelot.
There is no place for me in Camelot.
There is no place for me save where the Light May lead me; and to that place I shall go.
Meanwhile I lay upon your soul no load Of counsel or of empty admonition; Only I ask of you, should strife arise In Camelot, to remember, if you may, That you’ve an ardor that outruns your reason, Also a glamour that outshines your guile; And you are a strange hater.
I know that; And I’m in fortune that you hate not me.
Yet while we have our sins to dream about, Time has done worse for time than in our making; Albeit there may be sundry falterings And falls against us in the Book of Man.
” “Praise Adam, you are mellowing at last! I’ve always liked this world, and would so still; And if it is your new Light leads you on To such an admirable gait, for God’s sake, Follow it, follow it, follow it, Lancelot; Follow it as you never followed glory.
Once I believed that I was on the way That you call yours, but I came home again To Camelot—and Camelot was right, For the world knows its own that knows not you; You are a thing too vaporous to be sharing The carnal feast of life.
You mow down men Like elder-stems, and you leave women sighing For one more sight of you; but they do wrong.
You are a man of mist, and have no shadow.
God save you, Lancelot.
If I laugh at you, I laugh in envy and in admiration.
” The joyless evanescence of a smile, Discovered on the face of Lancelot By Gawaine’s unrelenting vigilance, Wavered, and with a sullen change went out; And then there was the music of a woman Laughing behind them, and a woman spoke: “Gawaine, you said ‘God save you, Lancelot.
’ Why should He save him any more to-day Than on another day? What has he done, Gawaine, that God should save him?” Guinevere, With many questions in her dark blue eyes And one gay jewel in her golden hair, Had come upon the two of them unseen, Till now she was a russet apparition At which the two arose—one with a dash Of easy leisure in his courtliness, One with a stately calm that might have pleased The Queen of a strange land indifferently.
The firm incisive languor of her speech, Heard once, was heard through battles: “Lancelot, What have you done to-day that God should save you? What has he done, Gawaine, that God should save him? I grieve that you two pinks of chivalry Should be so near me in my desolation, And I, poor soul alone, know nothing of it.
What has he done, Gawaine?” With all her poise, To Gawaine’s undeceived urbanity She was less queen than woman for the nonce, And in her eyes there was a flickering Of a still fear that would not be veiled wholly With any mask of mannered nonchalance.
“What has he done? Madam, attend your nephew; And learn from him, in your incertitude, That this inordinate man Lancelot, This engine of renown, this hewer down daily Of potent men by scores in our late warfare, Has now inside his head a foreign fever That urges him away to the last edge Of everything, there to efface himself In ecstasy, and so be done with us.
Hereafter, peradventure certain birds Will perch in meditation on his bones, Quite as if they were some poor sailor’s bones, Or felon’s jettisoned, or fisherman’s, Or fowler’s bones, or Mark of Cornwall’s bones.
In fine, this flower of men that was our comrade Shall be for us no more, from this day on, Than a much remembered Frenchman far away.
Magnanimously I leave you now to prize Your final sight of him; and leaving you, I leave the sun to shine for him alone, Whiles I grope on to gloom.
Madam, farewell; And you, contrarious Lancelot, farewell.
Written by Rg Gregory | Create an image from this poem

from Proverbs of Hell

 (a) radical

ban all fires
and places where people congregate
to create comfort
put an end to sleep
good cooking
and the delectation of wine
tear lovers apart
piss on the sun and moon
degut all heavenly harmony
strike out across the bitter ice
and the poisonous marshes

make (if you dare) a better world

(b) expect poison from standing water
  (iii)
lake erie
why not as a joke one night
pick up your bed and walk
to washington – sleep
your damned sleep in its streets
so that one bright metallic morning
it can wake up to the stench
and fermentation of flesh
the gutrot of nerves – the blood’s
green effervescence so active
your skin has a job to keep it all in

isn’t that what things with the palsy
are supposed to do – lovely lake
give the world the miracle it waits for
what a laugh that would be

especially if washington lost its temper
and screamed christ lake erie
i don’t even know what to do
with my own garbage

pollution is just one of those things

go on lake erie
do it tonight

(c) drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead

(i)
isn't the next one
easter egg

  i don't want to live any more in an old way

yes it is

  to be a socialist wearing capitalism's cap
  a teacher in the shadow of a dead headmaster
  a tree using somebody else's old sap

  i want to build my future out of new emotions
  to seek more than my own in a spring surround
  to move amongst people keen to move outwards
  putting love and ideas into fresh ground

  who will come with me across this border
  not anywhere but in the bonds we make
  taking the old apart to find new order
  living ourselves boldly for each other's sake

then love is

  if you ask me today what love is
  i should have to name the people i love
  and perhaps because it's spring
  and i cannot control the knife that's in me
  their names would surprise me as much as you

  for years i have assumed that love is bloody
  a thing locked up in house and a family tree
  but suddenly its ache goes out beyond me
  and the first love is greater for the new

  this year more than any other
  the winter has savaged my deepest roots
  and the easter sun is banging hard against the window
  the arms of my loves are flowering widely
  and over the fields a new definition is running

  even though the streets we walk cannot be altered
  and faces there are that will not understand
  we have a sun born of our mutual longings
  whose shine is a hard fact - love is a new land

new spartans

  i haven't felt this young for twenty years
  yesterday i felt twenty years older
  then i had the curtains drawn over recluse fears
  today the sun comes in and instantly it's colder

  must shave and get dressed - i'm being nagged
  to shove my suspicions in a corner and get out
  what use the sun if being plagued with new life
  i can't throw off this centrally-heated doubt

  accept people with ice in their brows
  are the new spartans - they wait
      shall i go with them
  indoor delights that slowly breed into lies
  need to be dumped out of doors - and paralysis with them

no leave it
there's still one more
the need now

  the need now is to chronicle new times
  by their own statutes not as ***-ends of the old
  ideas stand out bravely against the surrounding grey
  seeking their own order in what themselves proclaim
  fortresses no longer belong by right to an older day

  i want to gather in my hands things i believe in
  not to be told that other rules prevail - there is
  a treading forward to be done of great excitement
  and people to be found who by the old laws
  should be little more than dead
      this enlightment

  is cutting like spring into a bitter winter
  and there is this smashing of many concrete shells
  a dream with the cheek to be aggressive has assumed
  its own flesh and bone and will not put up with sleep
  as its prime condition - life out of death is exhumed

it's the other side
is so disappointing
no thanks
leave it for now

(ii)

there follows a brief interlude in honour of mr vasko popa
(the yugoslav poet who in a short visit to this country
has stayed a long time)
and it will not now take place

  this game is called x
  no one else can play

  when the game is over
  we have all joined in

  those who have not been playing
  have to give in an ear

  if you don't have an ear
  use one of those lying about

  left over from the last time
  the game wasn't played

  this game is not to do with ears
  shooting must be done from the heart

  x sits in the middle of the ring - he
  has gone for a stroll up his left nostril

  how can he seize a left-over ear
  and drag it under the ground

  hands up if you have been shot from the heart
  x comes up in the middle of himself

  in this way the game is over before
  it began and everyone willy-nilly

  has had to go home
  before he could put a foot outside


(d) enough! – or too much

   reading popa
   i let fly
   too many words

   i bang away
   at the seed
   but can’t break it

   hurt i turn to
   constructing
   castles with cards

   if you can’t split
   the atom
   man stop writing


Written by Paul Laurence Dunbar | Create an image from this poem

The Haunted Oak

 Pray why are you so bare, so bare, 
Oh, bough of the old oak-tree;
And why, when I go through the shade you throw,
Runs a shudder over me?
My leaves were green as the best, I trow,
And sap ran free in my veins,
But I say in the moonlight dim and weird
A guiltless victim's pains.
They'd charged him with the old, old crime, And set him fast in jail: Oh, why does the dog howl all night long, And why does the night wind wail? He prayed his prayer and he swore his oath, And he raised his hand to the sky; But the beat of hoofs smote on his ear, And the steady tread drew nigh.
Who is it rides by night, by night, Over the moonlit road? And what is the spur that keeps the pace, What is the galling goad? And now they beat at the prison door, "Ho, keeper, do not stay! We are friends of him whom you hold within, And we fain would take him away "From those who ride fast on our heels With mind to do him wrong; They have no care for his innocence, And the rope they bear is long.
" They have fooled the jailer with lying words, They have fooled the man with lies; The bolts unbar, the locks are drawn, And the great door open flies.
Now they have taken him from the jail, And hard and fast they ride, And the leader laughs low down in his throat, As they halt my trunk beside.
Oh, the judge, he wore a mask of black, And the doctor one of white, And the minister, with his oldest son, Was curiously bedight.
Oh, foolish man, why weep you now? 'Tis but a little space, And the time will come when these shall dread The mem'ry of your face.
I feel the rope against my bark, And the weight of him in my grain, I feel in the throe of his final woe The touch of my own last pain.
And never more shall leaves come forth On the bough that bears the ban; I am burned with dread, I am dried and dead, From the curse of a guiltless man.
And ever the judge rides by, rides by, And goes to hunt the deer, And ever another rides his soul In the guise of a mortal fear.
And ever the man he rides me hard, And never a night stays he; For I feel his curse as a haunted bough, On the trunk of a haunted tree.
Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

The Ballad Of Hank The Finn

 Now Fireman Flynn met Hank the Finn where lights of Lust-land glow;
"Let's leave," says he, "the lousy sea, and give the land a show.
I'm fed up to the molar mark with wallopin' the brine; I feel the bloody barnacles a-carkin' on me spine.
Let's hit the hard-boiled North a crack, where creeks are paved with gold.
" "You count me in," says Hank the Finn.
"Ay do as Ay ban told.
" And so they sought the Lonely Land and drifted down its stream, Where sunny silence round them spanned, as dopey as a dream.
But to the spell of flood and fell their gold-grimed eyes were blind; By pine and peak they paused to seek, but nothing did they find; No yellow glint of dust to mint, just mud and mocking sand, And a hateful hush that seemed to crush them down on every hand.
Till Fireman Flynn grew mean as sin, and cursed his comrade cold, But Hank the Finn would only grin, and .
.
.
do as he was told.
Now Fireman Flynn had pieces ten of yellow Yankee gold, Which every night he would invite his partner to behold.
"Look hard," says he; "It's all you'll see in this god-blasted land; But you fret, I'm gonna let you hold them i your hand.
Yeah! Watch 'em gleam, then go and dream they're yours to have and hold.
" Then Hank the Finn would scratch his chin and .
.
.
do as he was told.
But every night by camp-fire light, he'd incubate his woes, And fan the hate of mate for mate, the evil Artic knows.
In dreams the Lapland withes gloomed like gargoyles overhead, While the devils three of Helsinkee came cowering by his bed.
"Go take," said they, "the yellow loot he's clinking in his belt, And leave the sneaking wolverines to snout around his pelt.
Last night he called you Swedish scum, from out the glory-hole; To-day he said you were a bum, and damned your mother's soul.
Go, plug with lead his scurvy head, and grab his greasy gold .
.
.
" Then Hank the Finn saw red within, and .
.
.
did as he was told.
So in due course the famous Force of Men Who Get Their Man, Swooped down on sleeping Hank the Finn, and popped him in the can.
And in due time his grievous crime was judged without a plea, And he was dated up to swing upon the gallows tree.
Then Sheriff gave a party in the Law's almighty name, He gave a neck-tie party, and he asked me to the same.
There was no hooch a-flowin' and his party wasn't gay, For O our hearts were heavy at the dawning of the day.
There was no band a-playin' and the only dancin' there Was Hank the Fin interpretin' his solo in the air.
We climbed the scaffold steps and stood beside the knotted rope.
We watched the hooded hangman and his eyes were dazed with dope.
The Sheriff was in evening dress; a bell began to toll, A beastly bell that struck a knell of horror to the soul.
As if the doomed one was myself, I shuddered, waiting there.
I spoke no word, then .
.
.
then I heard his step upon the stair; His halting foot, moccasin clad .
.
.
and then I saw him stand Between a weeping warder and a priest with Cross in hand.
And at the sight a murmur rose of terror and of awe, And all them hardened gallows fans were sick at what they saw: For as he towered above the mob, his limbs with leather triced, By all that's wonderful, I swear, his face was that of Christ.
Now I ain't no blaspheming cuss, so don't you start to shout.
You see, his beard had grown so long it framed his face about.
His rippling hair was long and fair, his cheeks were spirit-pale, His face was bright with holy light that made us wince and quail.
He looked at us with eyes a-shine, and sore were we confused, As if he were the Judge divine, and we were the accused.
Aye, as serene he stood between the hangman and the cord, You would have sworn, with anguish torn, he was the Blessed Lord.
The priest was wet with icy sweat, the Sheriff's lips were dry, And we were staring starkly at the man who had to die.
"Lo! I am raised above you all," his pale lips seemed to say, "For in a moment I shall leap to God's Eternal Day.
Am I not happy! I forgive you each for what you do; Redeemed and penitent I go, with heart of love for you.
" So there he stood in mystic mood, with scorn sublime of death.
I saw him gently kiss the Cross, and then I held by breath.
That blessed smile was blotted out; they dropped the hood of black; They fixed the noose around his neck, the rope was hanging slack.
I heard him pray, I saw him sway, then .
.
.
then he was not there; A rope, a ghastly yellow rope was jerking in the air; A jigging rope that soon was still; a hush as of the tomb, And Hank the Finn, that man of sin, had met his rightful doom.
His rightful doom! Now that's the point.
I'm wondering, because I hold a man is what he is, and never what he was.
You see, the priest had filled that guy so full of holy dope, That at the last he came to die as pious as the Pope.
A gentle ray of sunshine made a halo round his head.
I thought to see a sinner - lo! I saw a Saint instead.
Aye, as he stood as martyrs stand, clean-cleansed of mortal dross, I think he might have gloried had .
.
.
WE NAILED HIM TO A CROSS.
Written by Alexander Pushkin | Create an image from this poem

The Talisman

 Where the sea forever dances
Over lonely cliff and dune,
Where sweet twilight's vapor glances
In a warmer-glowing moon,
Where with the seraglio's graces
Daylong toys the Mussulman,
An enchantress 'mid embraces
Handed me a talisman.
'Mid embraces I was bidden: "Guard this talisman of mine: In it secret power is hidden! Love himself has made it thine.
Neither death nor ills nor aging, My beloved, does it ban, Nor in gales and tempest raging Can avail my talisman.
Never will it help thee gather Treasures of the Orient coast, Neither to thy harness tether Captives of the Prophet's host; Nor in sadness will it lead thee To a friendly bosom, nor From this alien southland speed thee To the native northern shore.
"But whenever eyes designing Cast on thee a sudden spell, In the darkness lips entwining Love thee not, but kiss too well: Shield thee, love, from evil preying, From new heart-wounds---that it can, From forgetting, from betraying Guards thee this my talisman.
"
Written by Robert Burns | Create an image from this poem

70. Epistle to the Rev. John M'Math

 WHILE at the stook the shearers cow’r
To shun the bitter blaudin’ show’r,
Or in gulravage rinnin scowr
 To pass the time,
To you I dedicate the hour
 In idle rhyme.
My musie, tir’d wi’ mony a sonnet On gown, an’ ban’, an’ douse black bonnet, Is grown right eerie now she’s done it, Lest they should blame her, An’ rouse their holy thunder on it An anathem her.
I own ’twas rash, an’ rather hardy, That I, a simple, country bardie, Should meddle wi’ a pack sae sturdy, Wha, if they ken me, Can easy, wi’ a single wordie, Lowse hell upon me.
But I gae mad at their grimaces, Their sighin, cantin, grace-proud faces, Their three-mile prayers, an’ half-mile graces, Their raxin conscience, Whase greed, revenge, an’ pride disgraces Waur nor their nonsense.
There’s Gaw’n, misca’d waur than a beast, Wha has mair honour in his breast Than mony scores as guid’s the priest Wha sae abus’d him: And may a bard no crack his jest What way they’ve us’d him? See him, the poor man’s friend in need, The gentleman in word an’ deed— An’ shall his fame an’ honour bleed By worthless, skellums, An’ not a muse erect her head To cowe the blellums? O Pope, had I thy satire’s darts To gie the rascals their deserts, I’d rip their rotten, hollow hearts, An’ tell aloud Their jugglin hocus-pocus arts To cheat the crowd.
God knows, I’m no the thing I should be, Nor am I even the thing I could be, But twenty times I rather would be An atheist clean, Than under gospel colours hid be Just for a screen.
An honest man may like a glass, An honest man may like a lass, But mean revenge, an’ malice fause He’ll still disdain, An’ then cry zeal for gospel laws, Like some we ken.
They take religion in their mouth; They talk o’ mercy, grace, an’ truth, For what?—to gie their malice skouth On some puir wight, An’ hunt him down, owre right and ruth, To ruin straight.
All hail, Religion! maid divine! Pardon a muse sae mean as mine, Who in her rough imperfect line Thus daurs to name thee; To stigmatise false friends of thine Can ne’er defame thee.
Tho’ blotch’t and foul wi’ mony a stain, An’ far unworthy of thy train, With trembling voice I tune my strain, To join with those Who boldly dare thy cause maintain In spite of foes: In spite o’ crowds, in spite o’ mobs, In spite o’ undermining jobs, In spite o’ dark banditti stabs At worth an’ merit, By scoundrels, even wi’ holy robes, But hellish spirit.
O Ayr! my dear, my native ground, Within thy presbyterial bound A candid liberal band is found Of public teachers, As men, as Christians too, renown’d, An’ manly preachers.
Sir, in that circle you are nam’d; Sir, in that circle you are fam’d; An’ some, by whom your doctrine’s blam’d (Which gies you honour) Even, sir, by them your heart’s esteem’d, An’ winning manner.
Pardon this freedom I have ta’en, An’ if impertinent I’ve been, Impute it not, good Sir, in ane Whase heart ne’er wrang’d ye, But to his utmost would befriend Ought that belang’d ye.
Written by Robert Burns | Create an image from this poem

132. Reply to a Trimming Epistle received from a Tailor

 WHAT ails ye now, ye lousie *****
To thresh my back at sic a pitch?
Losh, man! hae mercy wi’ your natch,
 Your bodkin’s bauld;
I didna suffer half sae much
 Frae Daddie Auld.
What tho’ at times, when I grow crouse, I gie their wames a random pouse, Is that enough for you to souse Your servant sae? Gae mind your seam, ye prick-the-louse, An’ jag-the-flea! King David, o’ poetic brief, Wrocht ’mang the lasses sic mischief As filled his after-life wi’ grief, An’ bluidy rants, An’ yet he’s rank’d amang the chief O’ lang-syne saunts.
And maybe, Tam, for a’ my cants, My wicked rhymes, an’ drucken rants, I’ll gie auld cloven’s Clootie’s haunts An unco slip yet, An’ snugly sit amang the saunts, At Davie’s hip yet! But, fegs! the session says I maun Gae fa’ upo’ anither plan Than garrin lasses coup the cran, Clean heels ower body, An’ sairly thole their mother’s ban Afore the howdy.
This leads me on to tell for sport, How I did wi’ the Session sort; Auld Clinkum, at the inner port, Cried three times, “Robin! Come hither lad, and answer for’t, Ye’re blam’d for jobbin!” Wi’ pinch I put a Sunday’s face on, An’ snoov’d awa before the Session: I made an open, fair confession— I scorn’t to lee, An’ syne Mess John, beyond expression, Fell foul o’ me.
A fornicator-loun he call’d me, An’ said my faut frae bliss expell’d me; I own’d the tale was true he tell’d me, “But, what the matter? (Quo’ I) I fear unless ye geld me, I’ll ne’er be better!” “Geld you! (quo’ he) an’ what for no? If that your right hand, leg or toe Should ever prove your sp’ritual foe, You should remember To cut it aff—an’ what for no Your dearest member?” “Na, na, (quo’ I,) I’m no for that, Gelding’s nae better than ’tis ca’t; I’d rather suffer for my faut A hearty flewit, As sair owre hip as ye can draw’t, Tho’ I should rue it.
“Or, gin ye like to end the bother, To please us a’—I’ve just ae ither— When next wi’ yon lass I forgather, Whate’er betide it, I’ll frankly gie her ’t a’ thegither, An’ let her guide it.
” But, sir, this pleas’d them warst of a’, An’ therefore, Tam, when that I saw, I said “Gude night,” an’ cam’ awa’, An’ left the Session; I saw they were resolvèd a’ On my oppression.

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