10 Best Famous Carnal Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Carnal poems. This is a select list of the best famous Carnal poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Carnal poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of carnal poems.

• All Famous Carnal Poems

 I

I, in my intricate image, stride on two levels,
Forged in man's minerals, the brassy orator
Laying my ghost in metal,
The scales of this twin world tread on the double,
My half ghost in armour hold hard in death's corridor,
To my man-iron sidle.

Beginning with doom in the bulb, the spring unravels,
Bright as her spinning-wheels, the colic season
Worked on a world of petals;
She threads off the sap and needles, blood and bubble
Casts to the pine roots, raising man like a mountain
Out of the naked entrail.

Beginning with doom in the ghost, and the springing marvels,
Image of images, my metal phantom
Forcing forth through the harebell,
My man of leaves and the bronze root, mortal, unmortal,
I, in my fusion of rose and male motion,
Create this twin miracle.

This is the fortune of manhood: the natural peril,
A steeplejack tower, bonerailed and masterless,
No death more natural;
Thus the shadowless man or ox, and the pictured devil,
In seizure of silence commit the dead nuisance.
The natural parallel.

My images stalk the trees and the slant sap's tunnel,
No tread more perilous, the green steps and spire
Mount on man's footfall,
I with the wooden insect in the tree of nettles,
In the glass bed of grapes with snail and flower,
Hearing the weather fall.

Intricate manhood of ending, the invalid rivals,
Voyaging clockwise off the symboled harbour,
Finding the water final,
On the consumptives' terrace taking their two farewells,
Sail on the level, the departing adventure,
To the sea-blown arrival.

II

They climb the country pinnacle,
Twelve winds encounter by the white host at pasture,
Corner the mounted meadows in the hill corral;
They see the squirrel stumble,
The haring snail go giddily round the flower,
A quarrel of weathers and trees in the windy spiral.

As they dive, the dust settles,
The cadaverous gravels, falls thick and steadily,
The highroad of water where the seabear and mackerel
Turn the long sea arterial
Turning a petrol face blind to the enemy
Turning the riderless dead by the channel wall.

(Death instrumental,
Splitting the long eye open, and the spiral turnkey,
Your corkscrew grave centred in navel and nipple,
The neck of the nostril,
Under the mask and the ether, they making bloody
The tray of knives, the antiseptic funeral;

Bring out the black patrol,
Your monstrous officers and the decaying army,
The sexton sentinel, garrisoned under thistles,
A cock-on-a-dunghill
Crowing to Lazarus the morning is vanity,
Dust be your saviour under the conjured soil.)

As they drown, the chime travels,
Sweetly the diver's bell in the steeple of spindrift
Rings out the Dead Sea scale;
And, clapped in water till the triton dangles,
Strung by the flaxen whale-weed, from the hangman's raft,
Hear they the salt glass breakers and the tongues of burial.

(Turn the sea-spindle lateral,
The grooved land rotating, that the stylus of lightning
Dazzle this face of voices on the moon-turned table,
Let the wax disk babble
Shames and the damp dishonours, the relic scraping.
These are your years' recorders. The circular world stands still.)

III

They suffer the undead water where the turtle nibbles,
Come unto sea-stuck towers, at the fibre scaling,
The flight of the carnal skull
And the cell-stepped thimble;
Suffer, my topsy-turvies, that a double angel
Sprout from the stony lockers like a tree on Aran.

Be by your one ghost pierced, his pointed ferrule,
Brass and the bodiless image, on a stick of folly
Star-set at Jacob's angle,
Smoke hill and hophead's valley,
And the five-fathomed Hamlet on his father's coral
Thrusting the tom-thumb vision up the iron mile.

Suffer the slash of vision by the fin-green stubble,
Be by the ships' sea broken at the manstring anchored
The stoved bones' voyage downward
In the shipwreck of muscle;
Give over, lovers, locking, and the seawax struggle,
Love like a mist or fire through the bed of eels.

And in the pincers of the boiling circle,
The sea and instrument, nicked in the locks of time,
My great blood's iron single
In the pouring town,
I, in a wind on fire, from green Adam's cradle,
No man more magical, clawed out the crocodile.

Man was the scales, the death birds on enamel,
Tail, Nile, and snout, a saddler of the rushes,
Time in the hourless houses
Shaking the sea-hatched skull,
And, as for oils and ointments on the flying grail,
All-hollowed man wept for his white apparel.

Man was Cadaver's masker, the harnessing mantle,
Windily master of man was the rotten fathom,
My ghost in his metal neptune
Forged in man's mineral.
This was the god of beginning in the intricate seawhirl,
And my images roared and rose on heaven's hill.

 Lough, vessel, plough the British main,
Seek the free ocean's wider plain; 
Leave English scenes and English skies,
Unbind, dissever English ties; 
Bear me to climes remote and strange, 
Where altered life, fast-following change,
Hot action, never-ceasing toil, 
Shall stir, turn, dig, the spirit's soil; 
Fresh roots shall plant, fresh seed shall sow, 
Till a new garden there shall grow, 
Cleared of the weeds that fill it now,­ 
Mere human love, mere selfish yearning, 
Which, cherished, would arrest me yet. 
I grasp the plough, there's no returning, 
Let me, then, struggle to forget. 

But England's shores are yet in view, 
And England's skies of tender blue 
Are arched above her guardian sea. 
I cannot yet Remembrance flee; 
I must again, then, firmly face 
That task of anguish, to retrace. 
Wedded to home­I home forsake, 
Fearful of change­I changes make; 
Too fond of ease­I plunge in toil; 
Lover of calm­I seek turmoil: 
Nature and hostile Destiny 
Stir in my heart a conflict wild; 
And long and fierce the war will be 
Ere duty both has reconciled. 

What other tie yet holds me fast
To the divorced, abandoned past?
Smouldering, on my heart's altar lies
The fire of some great sacrifice,
Not yet half quenched. The sacred steel
But lately struck my carnal will, 
My life-long hope, first joy and last, 
What I loved well, and clung to fast; 
What I wished wildly to retain, 
What I renounced with soul-felt pain; 
What­when I saw it, axe-struck, perish­ 
Left me no joy on earth to cherish; 
A man bereft­yet sternly now 
I do confirm that Jephtha vow: 
Shall I retract, or fear, or flee ? 
Did Christ, when rose the fatal tree 
Before him, on Mount Calvary ? 
'Twas a long fight, hard fought, but won, 
And what I did was justly done. 

Yet, Helen ! from thy love I turned,
When my heart most for thy heart burned;
I dared thy tears, I dared thy scorn­
Easier the death-pang had been borne.
Helen ! thou mightst not go with me,
I could not­dared not stay for thee !
I heard, afar, in bonds complain
The savage from beyond the main;
And that wild sound rose o'er the cry
Wrung out by passion's agony;
And even when, with the bitterest tear
I ever shed, mine eyes were dim,
Still, with the spirit's vision clear,
I saw Hell's empire, vast and grim,
Spread on each Indian river's shore,
Each realm of Asia covering o'er. 

There the weak, trampled by the strong,
Live but to suffer­hopeless die; 
There pagan-priests, whose creed is Wrong, 
Extortion, Lust, and Cruelty, 
Crush our lost race­and brimming fill 
The bitter cup of human ill; 
And I­who have the healing creed, 
The faith benign of Mary's Son; 
Shall I behold my brother's need 
And selfishly to aid him shun ? 
I­who upon my mother's knees, 
In childhood, read Christ's written word, 
Received his legacy of peace, 
His holy rule of action heard; 
I­in whose heart the sacred sense 
Of Jesus' love was early felt; 
Of his pure full benevolence, 
His pitying tenderness for guilt; 
His shepherd-care for wandering sheep, 
For all weak, sorrowing, trembling things, 
His mercy vast, his passion deep 
Of anguish for man's sufferings; 
I­schooled from childhood in such lore­ 
Dared I draw back or hesitate, 
When called to heal the sickness sore 
Of those far off and desolate ? 
Dark, in the realm and shades of Death, 
Nations and tribes and empires lie, 
But even to them the light of Faith 
Is breaking on their sombre sky: 
And be it mine to bid them raise 
Their drooped heads to the kindling scene, 
And know and hail the sunrise blaze 
Which heralds Christ the Nazarene. 
I know how Hell the veil will spread 
Over their brows and filmy eyes, 
And earthward crush the lifted head 
That would look up and seek the skies; 
I know what war the fiend will wage 
Against that soldier of the cross, 
Who comes to dare his demon-rage, 
And work his kingdom shame and loss. 
Yes, hard and terrible the toil 
Of him who steps on foreign soil, 
Resolved to plant the gospel vine, 
Where tyrants rule and slaves repine; 
Eager to lift Religion's light 
Where thickest shades of mental night 
Screen the false god and fiendish rite; 
Reckless that missionary blood, 
Shed in wild wilderness and wood, 
Has left, upon the unblest air, 
The man's deep moan­the martyr's prayer. 
I know my lot­I only ask 
Power to fulfil the glorious task; 
Willing the spirit, may the flesh 
Strength for the day receive afresh. 
May burning sun or deadly wind 
Prevail not o'er an earnest mind; 
May torments strange or direst death
Nor trample truth, nor baffle faith.
Though such blood-drops should fall from me
As fell in old Gethsemane,
Welcome the anguish, so it gave
More strength to work­more skill to save.
And, oh ! if brief must be my time,
If hostile hand or fatal clime
Cut short my course­still o'er my grave, 
Lord, may thy harvest whitening wave. 
So I the culture may begin,
Let others thrust the sickle in;
If but the seed will faster grow,
May my blood water what I sow ! 

What ! have I ever trembling stood,
And feared to give to God that blood ?
What ! has the coward love of life
Made me shrink from the righteous strife ?
Have human passions, human fears
Severed me from those Pioneers,
Whose task is to march first, and trace
Paths for the progress of our race ?
It has been so; but grant me, Lord,
Now to stand steadfast by thy word !
Protected by salvation's helm,
Shielded by faith­with truth begirt,
To smile when trials seek to whelm
And stand 'mid testing fires unhurt ! 
Hurling hell's strongest bulwarks down, 
Even when the last pang thrills my breast, 
When Death bestows the Martyr's crown, 
And calls me into Jesus' rest. 
Then for my ultimate reward­ 
Then for the world-rejoicing word­ 
The voice from Father­Spirit­Son: 
" Servant of God, well hast thou done !"

 "Lord, being dark," I said, "I cannot bear
The further touch of earth, the scented air;
Lord, being dark, forewilled to that despair
My color shrouds me in, I am as dirt
Beneath my brother's heel; there is a hurt
In all the simple joys which to a child
Are sweet; they are contaminate, defiled
By truths of wrongs the childish vision fails
To see; too great a cost this birth entails.
I strangle in this yoke drawn tighter than
The worth of bearing it, just to be man.
I am not brave enough to pay the price
In full; I lack the strength to sacrifice
I who have burned my hands upon a star,
And climbed high hills at dawn to view the far
Illimitable wonderments of earth,
For whom all cups have dripped the wine of mirth,
For whom the sea has strained her honeyed throat
Till all the world was sea, and I a boat
Unmoored, on what strange quest I willed to float;
Who wore a many-colored coat of dreams,
Thy gift, O Lord--I whom sun-dabbled streams
Have washed, whose bare brown thighs have held the sun
Incarcerate until his course was run,
I who considered man a high-perfected
Glass where loveliness could lie reflected,
Now that I sway athwart Truth's deep abyss,
Denuding man for what he was and is,
Shall breath and being so inveigle me
That I can damn my dreams to hell, and be
Content, each new-born day, anew to see
The steaming crimson vintage of my youth
Incarnadine the altar-slab of Truth?

Or hast Thou, Lord, somewhere I cannot see,
A lamb imprisoned in a bush for me?
Not so?Then let me render one by one
Thy gifts, while still they shine; some little sun
Yet gilds these thighs; my coat, albeit worn,
Still hold its colors fast; albeit torn.
My heart will laugh a little yet, if I
May win of Thee this grace, Lord:on this high
And sacrificial hill 'twixt earth and sky,
To dream still pure all that I loved, and die.
There is no other way to keep secure
My wild chimeras, grave-locked against the lure
Of Truth, the small hard teeth of worms, yet less
Envenomed than the mouth of Truth, will bless
Them into dust and happy nothingness.
Lord, Thou art God; and I, Lord, what am I
But dust?With dust my place.Lord, let me die."

Across earth's warm, palpitating crust
I flung my body in embrace; I thrust
My mouth into the grass and sucked the dew,
Then gave it back in tears my anguish drew;
So hard I pressed against the ground, I felt
The smallest sandgrain like a knife, and smelt
The next year's flowering; all this to speed
My body's dissolution, fain to feed
The worms.And so I groaned, and spent my strength
Until, all passion spent, I lay full length
And quivered like a flayed and bleeding thing.

So lay till lifted on a great black wing
That had no mate nor flesh-apparent trunk
To hamper it; with me all time had sunk
Into oblivion; when I awoke
The wing hung poised above two cliffs that broke
The bowels of the earth in twain, and cleft
The seas apart.Below, above, to left,
To right, I saw what no man saw before:
Earth, hell, and heaven; sinew, vein, and core.
All things that swim or walk or creep or fly,
All things that live and hunger, faint and die,
Were made majestic then and magnified
By sight so clearly purged and deified.
The smallest bug that crawls was taller than
A tree, the mustard seed loomed like a man.
The earth that writhes eternally with pain
Of birth, and woe of taking back her slain,
Laid bare her teeming bosom to my sight,
And all was struggle, gasping breath, and fight.
A blind worm here dug tunnels to the light,
And there a seed, racked with heroic pain,
Thrust eager tentacles to sun and rain:
It climbed; it died; the old love conquered me
To weep the blossom it would never be.
But here a bud won light; it burst and flowered
Into a rose whose beauty challenged, "Coward!"
There was no thing alive save only I
That held life in contempt and longed to die.
And still I writhed and moaned, "The curse, the curse,
Than animated death, can death be worse?"

"Dark child of sorrow, mine no less, what art Of mine can make thee see
and play thy part? The key to all strange things is in thy heart."

What voice was this that coursed like liquid fire
Along my flesh, and turned my hair to wire?

I raised my burning eyes, beheld a field
All multitudinous with carnal yield,
A grim ensanguined mead whereon I saw
Evolve the ancient fundamental law
Of tooth and talon, fist and nail and claw.
There with the force of living, hostile hills
Whose clash the hemmed-in vale with clamor fills,
With greater din contended fierce majestic wills
Of beast with beast, of man with man, in strife
For love of what my heart despised, for life
That unto me at dawn was now a prayer
For night, at night a bloody heart-wrung tear
For day again; for this, these groans
From tangled flesh and interlocked bones.
And no thing died that did not give
A testimony that it longed to live.
Man, strange composite blend of brute and god,
Pushed on, nor backward glanced where last he trod:
He seemed to mount a misty ladder flung
Pendant from a cloud, yet never gained a rung
But at his feet another tugged and clung.
My heart was still a pool of bitterness,
Would yield nought else, nought else confess.
I spoke (although no form was there
To see, I knew an ear was there to hear),
"Well, let them fight; they can whose flesh is fair."

Crisp lightning flashed; a wave of thunder shook
My wing; a pause, and then a speaking, "Look."

I scarce dared trust my ears or eyes for awe
Of what they heard, and dread of what they saw;
For, privileged beyond degree, this flesh
Beheld God and His heaven in the mesh
Of Lucifer's revolt, saw Lucifer
Glow like the sun, and like a dulcimer
I heard his sin-sweet voice break on the yell
Of God's great warriors:Gabriel,
Saint Clair and Michael, Israfel and Raphael.
And strange it was to see God with His back
Against a wall, to see Christ hew and hack
Till Lucifer, pressed by the mighty pair,
And losing inch by inch, clawed at the air
With fevered wings; then, lost beyond repair,
He tricked a mass of stars into his hair;
He filled his hands with stars, crying as he fell,
"A star's a star although it burns in hell."
So God was left to His divinity,
Omnipotent at that most costly fee.

There was a lesson here, but still the clod
In me was sycophant unto the rod,
And cried, "Why mock me thus?Am I a god?"

"One trial more:this failing, then I give You leave to die; no
further need to live."

Now suddenly a strange wild music smote
A chord long impotent in me; a note
Of jungles, primitive and subtle, throbbed
Against my echoing breast, and tom-toms sobbed
In every pulse-beat of my frame.The din
A hollow log bound with a python's skin
Can make wrought every nerve to ecstasy,
And I was wind and sky again, and sea,
And all sweet things that flourish, being free.

Till all at once the music changed its key.

And now it was of bitterness and death,
The cry the lash extorts, the broken breath
Of liberty enchained; and yet there ran
Through all a harmony of faith in man,
A knowledge all would end as it began.
All sights and sounds and aspects of my race
Accompanied this melody, kept pace
With it; with music all their hopes and hates
Were charged, not to be downed by all the fates.
And somehow it was borne upon my brain
How being dark, and living through the pain
Of it, is courage more than angels have.I knew
What storms and tumults lashed the tree that grew
This body that I was, this cringing I
That feared to contemplate a changing sky,
This that I grovelled, whining, "Let me die,"
While others struggled in Life's abattoir.
The cries of all dark people near or far
Were billowed over me, a mighty surge
Of suffering in which my puny grief must merge
And lose itself; I had no further claim to urge
For death; in shame I raised my dust-grimed head,
And though my lips moved not, God knew I said,
"Lord, not for what I saw in flesh or bone
Of fairer men; not raised on faith alone;
Lord, I will live persuaded by mine own.
I cannot play the recreant to these;
My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas."
With the whiz of a sword that severs space,
The wing dropped down at a dizzy pace,
And flung me on my hill flat on my face;
Flat on my face I lay defying pain,
Glad of the blood in my smallest vein,
And in my hands I clutched a loyal dream,
Still spitting fire, bright twist and coil and gleam,
And chiseled like a hound's white tooth.
"Oh, I will match you yet," I cried, "to truth."

Right glad I was to stoop to what I once had spurned.
Glad even unto tears; I laughed aloud; I turned
Upon my back, and though the tears for joy would run,
My sight was clear; I looked and saw the rising sun.

 I

TRUTH is within ourselves; it takes no rise 
From outward things, whate’er you may believe. 
There is an inmost centre in us all, 
Where truth abides in fullness; and around, 
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 
This perfect, clear perception—which is truth. 
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh 
Binds it, and makes all error: and, to KNOW, 
Rather consists in opening out a way 
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, 
Than in effecting entry for a light 
Supposed to be without. 

II

I knew, I felt, (perception unexpressed, 
Uncomprehended by our narrow thought, 
But somehow felt and known in every shift 
And change in the spirit,—nay, in every pore 
Of the body, even,)—what God is, what we are 
What life is—how God tastes an infinite joy 
In infinite ways—one everlasting bliss, 
From whom all being emanates, all power 
Proceeds; in whom is life for evermore, 
Yet whom existence in its lowest form 
Includes; where dwells enjoyment there is he: 
With still a flying point of bliss remote, 
A happiness in store afar, a sphere 
Of distant glory in full view; thus climbs 
Pleasure its heights for ever and for ever. 
The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth, 
And the earth changes like a human face; 
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks, 
Winds into the stone’s heart, outbranches bright 
In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds, 
Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask— 
God joys therein! The wroth sea’s waves are edged 
With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate, 
When, in the solitary waste, strange groups 
Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like, 
Staring together with their eyes on flame— 
God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride. 
Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod: 
But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes 
Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure 
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between 
The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost, 
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face; 
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms 
Like chrysalids impatient for the air, 
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run 
Along the furrows, ants make their ade; 
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark 
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy; 
Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls 
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe 
Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek 
Their loves in wood and plain—and God renews 
His ancient rapture. Thus He dwells in all, 
From life’s minute beginnings, up at last 
To man—the consummation of this scheme 
Of being, the completion of this sphere 
Of life: whose attributes had here and there 
Been scattered o’er the visible world before, 
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant 
To be united in some wondrous whole, 
Imperfect qualities throughout creation, 
Suggesting some one creature yet to make, 
Some point where all those scattered rays should meet 
Convergent in the faculties of man.

 EXPECT na, sir, in this narration,
A fleechin, fleth’rin Dedication,
To roose you up, an’ ca’ you guid,
An’ sprung o’ great an’ noble bluid,
Because ye’re surnam’d like His Grace—
Perhaps related to the race:
Then, when I’m tir’d-and sae are ye,
Wi’ mony a fulsome, sinfu’ lie,
Set up a face how I stop short,
For fear your modesty be hurt.


 This may do—maun do, sir, wi’ them wha
Maun please the great folk for a wamefou;
For me! sae laigh I need na bow,
For, Lord be thankit, I can plough;
And when I downa yoke a naig,
Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg;
Sae I shall say—an’ that’s nae flatt’rin—
It’s just sic Poet an’ sic Patron.


 The Poet, some guid angel help him,
Or else, I fear, some ill ane skelp him!
He may do weel for a’ he’s done yet,
But only—he’s no just begun yet.


 The Patron (sir, ye maun forgie me;
I winna lie, come what will o’ me),
On ev’ry hand it will allow’d be,
He’s just—nae better than he should be.


 I readily and freely grant,
He downa see a poor man want;
What’s no his ain, he winna tak it;
What ance he says, he winna break it;
Ought he can lend he’ll no refus’t,
Till aft his guidness is abus’d;
And rascals whiles that do him wrang,
Ev’n that, he does na mind it lang;
As master, landlord, husband, father,
He does na fail his part in either.


 But then, nae thanks to him for a’that;
Nae godly symptom ye can ca’ that;
It’s naething but a milder feature
Of our poor, sinfu’ corrupt nature:
Ye’ll get the best o’ moral works,
’Mang black Gentoos, and pagan Turks,
Or hunters wild on Ponotaxi,
Wha never heard of orthodoxy.
That he’s the poor man’s friend in need,
The gentleman in word and deed,
It’s no thro’ terror of damnation;
It’s just a carnal inclination.


 Morality, thou deadly bane,
Thy tens o’ thousands thou hast slain!
Vain is his hope, whase stay an’ trust is
In moral mercy, truth, and justice!


 No—stretch a point to catch a plack:
Abuse a brother to his back;
Steal through the winnock frae a whore,
But point the rake that taks the door;
Be to the poor like ony whunstane,
And haud their noses to the grunstane;
Ply ev’ry art o’ legal thieving;
No matter—stick to sound believing.


 Learn three-mile pray’rs, an’ half-mile graces,
Wi’ weel-spread looves, an’ lang, wry faces;
Grunt up a solemn, lengthen’d groan,
And damn a’ parties but your own;
I’ll warrant they ye’re nae deceiver,
A steady, sturdy, staunch believer.


 O ye wha leave the springs o’ Calvin,
For gumlie dubs of your ain delvin!
Ye sons of Heresy and Error,
Ye’ll some day squeel in quaking terror,
When Vengeance draws the sword in wrath.
And in the fire throws the sheath;
When Ruin, with his sweeping besom,
Just frets till Heav’n commission gies him;
While o’er the harp pale Misery moans,
And strikes the ever-deep’ning tones,
Still louder shrieks, and heavier groans!


 Your pardon, sir, for this digression:
I maist forgat my Dedication;
But when divinity comes ’cross me,
My readers still are sure to lose me.


 So, sir, you see ’twas nae daft vapour;
But I maturely thought it proper,
When a’ my works I did review,
To dedicate them, sir, to you:
Because (ye need na tak it ill),
I thought them something like yoursel’.


 Then patronize them wi’ your favor,
And your petitioner shall ever——
I had amaist said, ever pray,
But that’s a word I need na say;
For prayin, I hae little skill o’t,
I’m baith dead-sweer, an’ wretched ill o’t;
But I’se repeat each poor man’s pray’r,
That kens or hears about you, sir.——


 “May ne’er Misfortune’s gowling bark,
Howl thro’ the dwelling o’ the clerk!
May ne’er his genrous, honest heart,
For that same gen’rous spirit smart!
May Kennedy’s far-honour’d name
Lang beet his hymeneal flame,
Till Hamiltons, at least a dizzen,
Are frae their nuptial labours risen:
Five bonie lasses round their table,
And sev’n braw fellows, stout an’ able,
To serve their king an’ country weel,
By word, or pen, or pointed steel!
May health and peace, with mutual rays,
Shine on the ev’ning o’ his days;
Till his wee, curlie John’s ier-oe,
When ebbing life nae mair shall flow,
The last, sad, mournful rites bestow!”


 I will not wind a lang conclusion,
With complimentary effusion;
But, whilst your wishes and endeavours
Are blest with Fortune’s smiles and favours,
I am, dear sir, with zeal most fervent,
Your much indebted, humble servant.


 But if (which Pow’rs above prevent)
That iron-hearted carl, Want,
Attended, in his grim advances,
By sad mistakes, and black mischances,
While hopes, and joys, and pleasures fly him,
Make you as poor a dog as I am,
Your humble servant then no more;
For who would humbly serve the poor?
But, by a poor man’s hopes in Heav’n!
While recollection’s pow’r is giv’n—
If, in the vale of humble life,
The victim sad of fortune’s strife,
I, thro’ the tender-gushing tear,
Should recognise my master dear;
If friendless, low, we meet together,
Then, sir, your hand—my Friend and Brother!

 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.”

 KILMARNOCK wabsters, fidge an’ claw,
 An’ pour your creeshie nations;
An’ ye wha leather rax an’ draw,
 Of a’ denominations;
Swith to the Ligh Kirk, ane an’ a’
 An’ there tak up your stations;
Then aff to Begbie’s in a raw,
 An’ pour divine libations
 For joy this day.


Curst Common-sense, that imp o’ hell,
 Cam in wi’ Maggie Lauder; 1
But Oliphant 2 aft made her yell,
 An’ Russell 3 sair misca’d her:
This day Mackinlay 4 taks the flail,
 An’ he’s the boy will blaud her!
He’ll clap a shangan on her tail,
 An’ set the bairns to daud her
 Wi’ dirt this day.


Mak haste an’ turn King David owre,
 And lilt wi’ holy clangor;
O’ double verse come gie us four,
 An’ skirl up the Bangor:
This day the kirk kicks up a stoure;
 Nae mair the knaves shall wrang her,
For Heresy is in her pow’r,
 And gloriously she’ll whang her
 Wi’ pith this day.


Come, let a proper text be read,
 An’ touch it aff wi’ vigour,
How graceless Ham 5 leugh at his dad,
 Which made Canaan a ******;
Or Phineas 6 drove the murdering blade,
 Wi’ whore-abhorring rigour;
Or Zipporah, 7 the scauldin jad,
 Was like a bluidy tiger
 I’ th’ inn that day.


There, try his mettle on the creed,
 An’ bind him down wi’ caution,
That stipend is a carnal weed
 He taks by for the fashion;
And gie him o’er the flock, to feed,
 And punish each transgression;
Especial, rams that cross the breed,
 Gie them sufficient threshin;
 Spare them nae day.


Now, auld Kilmarnock, cock thy tail,
 An’ toss thy horns fu’ canty;
Nae mair thou’lt rowt out-owre the dale,
 Because thy pasture’s scanty;
For lapfu’s large o’ gospel kail
 Shall fill thy crib in plenty,
An’ runts o’ grace the pick an’ wale,
 No gi’en by way o’ dainty,
 But ilka day.


Nae mair by Babel’s streams we’ll weep,
 To think upon our Zion;
And hing our fiddles up to sleep,
 Like baby-clouts a-dryin!
Come, screw the pegs wi’ tunefu’ cheep,
 And o’er the thairms be tryin;
Oh, rare to see our elbucks wheep,
 And a’ like lamb-tails flyin
 Fu’ fast this day.


Lang, Patronage, with rod o’ airn,
 Has shor’d the Kirk’s undoin;
As lately Fenwick, sair forfairn,
 Has proven to its ruin: 8
Our patron, honest man! Glencairn,
 He saw mischief was brewin;
An’ like a godly, elect bairn,
 He’s waled us out a true ane,
 And sound, this day.


Now Robertson 9 harangue nae mair,
 But steek your gab for ever;
Or try the wicked town of Ayr,
 For there they’ll think you clever;
Or, nae reflection on your lear,
 Ye may commence a shaver;
Or to the Netherton 10 repair,
 An’ turn a carpet weaver
 Aff-hand this day.


Mu’trie 11 and you were just a match,
 We never had sic twa drones;
Auld Hornie did the Laigh Kirk watch,
 Just like a winkin baudrons,
And aye he catch’d the tither wretch,
 To fry them in his caudrons;
But now his Honour maun detach,
 Wi’ a’ his brimstone squadrons,
 Fast, fast this day.


See, see auld Orthodoxy’s faes
 She’s swingein thro’ the city!
Hark, how the nine-tail’d cat she plays!
 I vow it’s unco pretty:
There, Learning, with his Greekish face,
 Grunts out some Latin ditty;
And Common-sense is gaun, she says,
 To mak to Jamie Beattie
 Her plaint this day.


But there’s Morality himsel’,
 Embracing all opinions;
Hear, how he gies the tither yell,
 Between his twa companions!
See, how she peels the skin an’ fell,
 As ane were peelin onions!
Now there, they’re packed aff to hell,
 An’ banish’d our dominions,
 Henceforth this day.


O happy day! rejoice, rejoice!
 Come bouse about the porter!
Morality’s demure decoys
 Shall here nae mair find quarter:
Mackinlay, Russell, are the boys
 That heresy can torture;
They’ll gie her on a rape a hoyse,
 And cowe her measure shorter
 By th’ head some day.


Come, bring the tither mutchkin in,
 And here’s—for a conclusion—
To ev’ry New Light 12 mother’s son,
 From this time forth, Confusion!
If mair they deave us wi’ their din,
 Or Patronage intrusion,
We’ll light a *****, and ev’ry skin,
 We’ll rin them aff in fusion
 Like oil, some day.


 Note 1. Alluding to a scoffing ballad which was made on the admission of the late reverend and worthy Mr. Lihdsay to the “Laigh Kirk.”—R. B. [back]
Note 2. Rev. James Oliphant, minister of Chapel of Ease, Kilmarnock. [back]
Note 3. Rev. John Russell of Kilmarnock. [back]
Note 4. Rev. James Mackinlay. [back]
Note 5. Genesis ix. 22.—R. B. [back]
Note 6. Numbers xxv. 8.—R. B. [back]
Note 7. Exodus iv. 52.—R. B. [back]
Note 8. Rev. Wm. Boyd, pastor of Fenwick. [back]
Note 9. Rev. John Robertson. [back]
Note 10. A district of Kilmarnock. [back]
Note 11. The Rev. John Multrie, a “Moderate,” whom Mackinlay succeeded. [back]
Note 12. “New Light” is a cant phrase in the west of Scotland for those religious opinions which Dr. Taylor of Norwich has so strenuously defended.—R. B. [back]

 From time to time, lifting his eyes, he sees
The soft blue starlight through the one small window,
The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,—
And turns to write . . . The clock, behind ticks softly.

It is so long, indeed, since I have written,—
Two years, almost, your last is turning yellow,—
That these first words I write seem cold and strange.
Are you the man I knew, or have you altered?
Altered, of course—just as I too have altered—
And whether towards each other, or more apart,
We cannot say . . . I've just re-read your letter—
Not through forgetfulness, but more for pleasure—

Pondering much on all you say in it
Of mystic consciousness—divine conversion—
The sense of oneness with the infinite,—
Faith in the world, its beauty, and its purpose . . .
Well, you believe one must have faith, in some sort,
If one's to talk through this dark world contented.
But is the world so dark? Or is it rather
Our own brute minds,—in which we hurry, trembling,
Through streets as yet unlighted? This, I think.

You have been always, let me say, "romantic,"—
Eager for color, for beauty, soon discontented
With a world of dust and stones and flesh too ailing:
Even before the question grew to problem
And drove you bickering into metaphysics,
You met on lower planes the same great dragon,
Seeking release, some fleeting satisfaction,
In strange aesthetics . . . You tried, as I remember,
One after one, strange cults, and some, too, morbid,
The cruder first, more violent sensations,
Gorgeously carnal things, conceived and acted
With splendid animal thirst . . . Then, by degrees,—
Savoring all more delicate gradations

In all that hue and tone may play on flesh,
Or thought on brain,—you passed, if I may say so,
From red and scarlet through morbid greens to mauve.
Let us regard ourselves, you used to say,
As instruments of music, whereon our lives
Will play as we desire: and let us yield
These subtle bodies and subtler brains and nerves
To all experience plays . . . And so you went
From subtle tune to subtler, each heard once,
Twice or thrice at the most, tiring of each;
And closing one by one your doors, drew in
Slowly, through darkening labyrinths of feeling,
Towards the central chamber . . . Which now you've reached.

What, then's, the secret of this ultimate chamber—
Or innermost, rather? If I see it clearly
It is the last, and cunningest, resort
Of one who has found this world of dust and flesh,—
This world of lamentations, death, injustice,
Sickness, humiliation, slow defeat,
Bareness, and ugliness, and iteration,—
Too meaningless; or, if it has a meaning,
Too tiresomely insistent on one meaning:

Futility . . . This world, I hear you saying,—
With lifted chin, and arm in outflung gesture,
Coldly imperious,—this transient world,
What has it then to give, if not containing
Deep hints of nobler worlds? We know its beauties,—
Momentary and trivial for the most part,
Perceived through flesh, passing like flesh away,—
And know how much outweighed they are by darkness.
We are like searchers in a house of darkness,
A house of dust; we creep with little lanterns,
Throwing our tremulous arcs of light at random,
Now here, now there, seeing a plane, an angle,
An edge, a curve, a wall, a broken stairway
Leading to who knows what; but never seeing
The whole at once . . . We grope our way a little,
And then grow tired. No matter what we touch,
Dust is the answer—dust: dust everywhere.
If this were all—what were the use, you ask?
But this is not: for why should we be seeking,
Why should we bring this need to seek for beauty,
To lift our minds, if there were only dust?
This is the central chamber you have come to:
Turning your back to the world, until you came
To this deep room, and looked through rose-stained windows,
And saw the hues of the world so sweetly changed.

Well, in a measure, so only do we all.
I am not sure that you can be refuted.
At the very last we all put faith in something,—
You in this ghost that animates your world,
This ethical ghost,—and I, you'll say, in reason,—
Or sensuous beauty,—or in my secret self . . .
Though as for that you put your faith in these,
As much as I do—and then, forsaking reason,—
Ascending, you would say, to intuition,—
You predicate this ghost of yours, as well.
Of course, you might have argued,—and you should have,—
That no such deep appearance of design
Could shape our world without entailing purpose:
For can design exist without a purpose?
Without conceiving mind? . . . We are like children
Who find, upon the sands, beside a sea,
Strange patterns drawn,—circles, arcs, ellipses,
Moulded in sand . . . Who put them there, we wonder?

Did someone draw them here before we came?
Or was it just the sea?—We pore upon them,
But find no answer—only suppositions.
And if these perfect shapes are evidence
Of immanent mind, it is but circumstantial:
We never come upon him at his work,
He never troubles us. He stands aloof—
Well, if he stands at all: is not concerned
With what we are or do. You, if you like,
May think he broods upon us, loves us, hates us,
Conceives some purpose of us. In so doing
You see, without much reason, will in law.
I am content to say, 'this world is ordered,
Happily so for us, by accident:
We go our ways untroubled save by laws
Of natural things.' Who makes the more assumption?

If we were wise—which God knows we are not—
(Notice I call on God!) we'd plumb this riddle
Not in the world we see, but in ourselves.
These brains of ours—these delicate spinal clusters—
Have limits: why not learn them, learn their cravings?
Which of the two minds, yours or mine, is sound?
Yours, which scorned the world that gave it freedom,
Until you managed to see that world as omen,—
Or mine, which likes the world, takes all for granted,
Sorrow as much as joy, and death as life?—
You lean on dreams, and take more credit for it.
I stand alone . . . Well, I take credit, too.
You find your pleasure in being at one with all things—
Fusing in lambent dream, rising and falling
As all things rise and fall . . . I do that too—
With reservations. I find more varied pleasure
In understanding: and so find beauty even
In this strange dream of yours you call the truth.

Well, I have bored you. And it's growing late.
For household news—what have you heard, I wonder?
You must have heard that Paul was dead, by this time—
Of spinal cancer. Nothing could be done—
We found it out too late. His death has changed me,
Deflected much of me that lived as he lived,
Saddened me, slowed me down. Such things will happen,
Life is composed of them; and it seems wisdom
To see them clearly, meditate upon them,
And understand what things flow out of them.
Otherwise, all goes on here much as always.
Why won't you come and see us, in the spring,
And bring old times with you?—If you could see me
Sitting here by the window, watching Venus
Go down behind my neighbor's poplar branches,—
Just where you used to sit,—I'm sure you'd come.
This year, they say, the springtime will be early.

 I came with the rising sun and I've brought
nothing but two eyes, all I have,
simply two eyes, for the harvest
of grief that's hidden in this jungle
like the coffee shrubs. Fewer,
but they fling themselves upwards, untouchable,
are the trees that invidiously shut out
the light from this overwhelming indigence.
With my machete I go through the paths
of the cafetal.

Intricate paths
where the tamags lies in wait, sunk
in the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics,
the carnal luxury that gleams
in the eyes of the Creole overseer; sinuous
paths between junipers and avocados
where human thought, cowed
since before the white man, has never
found any other light than the well
of Quich; blind; drowning in itself.
Picking berries, the guanacos
hope only for a snort to free them
from the cafetal.

Through the humid shade beneath
the giant ceibas, Indian women
in all colors crawl like ants, one
behind the other, with the load balanced
on a waking sleep. They don't exist. They've never been born
and still they are dying daily, rubbed raw,
turned to wet earth with the plantation,
hunkered for days in the road to watch over the man
eternally blasted on booze, as good as dead
from one rain to the next, under the shrubs
of the cafetal.

The population has disappeared
into the coffee bean, and a tide of white lightning
seeps in to cover them. I stretch out a hand, pluck
the red berry, submit it to the test
of water, scrub it, wait for the fermentation
of the sweet pulp to release the bean.
How many centuries, now? How much misery
does it cost to become a man? How much mourning?
With a few strokes of the rake, the stripped bean
dries in the sun. It crackles, and I feel it
under my feet. Eternal drying shed
of the cafetal!

Backwash of consciousness,
soul sown with corn-mush and corn cobs,
blood stained with the black native dye.
Man below. Above, the volcanos.
Guatemala throws me to my knees
while every afternoon, with rain and thunder,
Tohil the Powerful lashes
this newly-arrived back. Lamentation
is the vegetal murmur, tender
of the cafetal.

Glossary:

Cafetal: a coffee plantation
tamag?s: a venomous serpent 
guanaco: a pack animal, used insultingly to indicate the native laborers
ceiba: a tall tropical hardwood tree

 UPON 1 a simmer Sunday morn
 When Nature’s face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn,
 An’ snuff the caller air.
The rising sun owre Galston muirs
 Wi’ glorious light was glintin;
The hares were hirplin down the furrs,
 The lav’rocks they were chantin
 Fu’ sweet that day.


As lightsomely I glowr’d abroad,
 To see a scene sae gay,
Three hizzies, early at the road,
 Cam skelpin up the way.
Twa had manteeles o” dolefu’ black,
 But ane wi’ lyart lining;
The third, that gaed a wee a-back,
 Was in the fashion shining
 Fu’ gay that day.


The twa appear’d like sisters twin,
 In feature, form, an’ claes;
Their visage wither’d, lang an’ thin,
 An’ sour as only slaes:
The third cam up, hap-stap-an’-lowp,
 As light as ony lambie,
An’ wi’a curchie low did stoop,
 As soon as e’er she saw me,
 Fu’ kind that day.


Wi’ bonnet aff, quoth I, “Sweet lass,
 I think ye seem to ken me;
I’m sure I’ve seen that bonie face
 But yet I canna name ye.”
Quo’ she, an’ laughin as she spak,
 An’ taks me by the han’s,
“Ye, for my sake, hae gien the feck
 Of a’ the ten comman’s
 A screed some day.”


“My name is Fun—your cronie dear,
 The nearest friend ye hae;
An’ this is Superstitution here,
 An’ that’s Hypocrisy.
I’m gaun to Mauchline Holy Fair,
 To spend an hour in daffin:
Gin ye’ll go there, yon runkl’d pair,
 We will get famous laughin
 At them this day.”


Quoth I, “Wi’ a’ my heart, I’ll do’t;
 I’ll get my Sunday’s sark on,
An’ meet you on the holy spot;
 Faith, we’se hae fine remarkin!”
Then I gaed hame at crowdie-time,
 An’ soon I made me ready;
For roads were clad, frae side to side,
 Wi’ mony a weary body
 In droves that day.


Here farmers gash, in ridin graith,
 Gaed hoddin by their cotters;
There swankies young, in braw braid-claith,
 Are springing owre the gutters.
The lasses, skelpin barefit, thrang,
 In silks an’ scarlets glitter;
Wi’ sweet-milk cheese, in mony a whang,
 An’ farls, bak’d wi’ butter,
 Fu’ crump that day.


When by the plate we set our nose,
 Weel heaped up wi’ ha’pence,
A greedy glowr black-bonnet throws,
 An’ we maun draw our tippence.
Then in we go to see the show:
 On ev’ry side they’re gath’rin;
Some carrying dails, some chairs an’ stools,
 An’ some are busy bleth’rin
 Right loud that day.


Here stands a shed to fend the show’rs,
 An’ screen our countra gentry;
There “Racer Jess, 2 an’ twa-three whores,
 Are blinkin at the entry.
Here sits a raw o’ tittlin jads,
 Wi’ heaving breast an’ bare neck;
An’ there a batch o’ wabster lads,
 Blackguarding frae Kilmarnock,
 For fun this day.


Here, some are thinkin on their sins,
 An’ some upo’ their claes;
Ane curses feet that fyl’d his shins,
 Anither sighs an’ prays:
On this hand sits a chosen swatch,
 Wi’ screwed-up, grace-proud faces;
On that a set o’ chaps, at watch,
 Thrang winkin on the lasses
 To chairs that day.


O happy is that man, an’ blest!
 Nae wonder that it pride him!
Whase ain dear lass, that he likes best,
 Comes clinkin down beside him!
Wi’ arms repos’d on the chair back,
 He sweetly does compose him;
Which, by degrees, slips round her neck,
 An’s loof upon her bosom,
 Unkend that day.


Now a’ the congregation o’er
 Is silent expectation;
For Moodie 3 speels the holy door,
 Wi’ tidings o’ damnation:
Should Hornie, as in ancient days,
 ’Mang sons o’ God present him,
The vera sight o’ Moodie’s face,
 To ’s ain het hame had sent him
 Wi’ fright that day.


Hear how he clears the point o’ faith
 Wi’ rattlin and wi’ thumpin!
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
 He’s stampin, an’ he’s jumpin!
His lengthen’d chin, his turned-up snout,
 His eldritch squeel an’ gestures,
O how they fire the heart devout,
 Like cantharidian plaisters
 On sic a day!


But hark! the tent has chang’d its voice,
 There’s peace an’ rest nae langer;
For a’ the real judges rise,
 They canna sit for anger,
Smith 4 opens out his cauld harangues,
 On practice and on morals;
An’ aff the godly pour in thrangs,
 To gie the jars an’ barrels
 A lift that day.


What signifies his barren shine,
 Of moral powers an’ reason?
His English style, an’ gesture fine
 Are a’ clean out o’ season.
Like Socrates or Antonine,
 Or some auld pagan heathen,
The moral man he does define,
 But ne’er a word o’ faith in
 That’s right that day.


In guid time comes an antidote
 Against sic poison’d nostrum;
For Peebles, 5 frae the water-fit,
 Ascends the holy rostrum:
See, up he’s got, the word o’ God,
 An’ meek an’ mim has view’d it,
While Common-sense has taen the road,
 An’ aff, an’ up the Cowgate 6
 Fast, fast that day.


Wee Miller 7 neist the guard relieves,
 An’ Orthodoxy raibles,
Tho’ in his heart he weel believes,
 An’ thinks it auld wives’ fables:
But faith! the birkie wants a manse,
 So, cannilie he hums them;
Altho’ his carnal wit an’ sense
 Like hafflins-wise o’ercomes him
 At times that day.


Now, butt an’ ben, the change-house fills,
 Wi’ yill-caup commentators;
Here ’s cryin out for bakes and gills,
 An’ there the pint-stowp clatters;
While thick an’ thrang, an’ loud an’ lang,
 Wi’ logic an’ wi’ scripture,
They raise a din, that in the end
 Is like to breed a rupture
 O’ wrath that day.


Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair
 Than either school or college;
It kindles wit, it waukens lear,
 It pangs us fou o’ knowledge:
Be’t whisky-gill or penny wheep,
 Or ony stronger potion,
It never fails, or drinkin deep,
 To kittle up our notion,
 By night or day.


The lads an’ lasses, blythely bent
 To mind baith saul an’ body,
Sit round the table, weel content,
 An’ steer about the toddy:
On this ane’s dress, an’ that ane’s leuk,
 They’re makin observations;
While some are cozie i’ the neuk,
 An’ forming assignations
 To meet some day.


But now the L—’s ain trumpet touts,
 Till a’ the hills are rairin,
And echoes back return the shouts;
 Black Russell is na sparin:
His piercin words, like Highlan’ swords,
 Divide the joints an’ marrow;
His talk o’ Hell, whare devils dwell,
 Our vera “sauls does harrow”
 Wi’ fright that day!


A vast, unbottom’d, boundless pit,
 Fill’d fou o’ lowin brunstane,
Whase raging flame, an’ scorching heat,
 Wad melt the hardest whun-stane!
The half-asleep start up wi’ fear,
 An’ think they hear it roarin;
When presently it does appear,
 ’Twas but some neibor snorin
 Asleep that day.


’Twad be owre lang a tale to tell,
 How mony stories past;
An’ how they crouded to the yill,
 When they were a’ dismist;
How drink gaed round, in cogs an’ caups,
 Amang the furms an’ benches;
An’ cheese an’ bread, frae women’s laps,
 Was dealt about in lunches
 An’ dawds that day.


In comes a gawsie, gash guidwife,
 An’ sits down by the fire,
Syne draws her kebbuck an’ her knife;
 The lasses they are shyer:
The auld guidmen, about the grace
 Frae side to side they bother;
Till some ane by his bonnet lays,
 An’ gies them’t like a tether,
 Fu’ lang that day.


Waesucks! for him that gets nae lass,
 Or lasses that hae naething!
Sma’ need has he to say a grace,
 Or melvie his braw claithing!
O wives, be mindfu’ ance yoursel’
 How bonie lads ye wanted;
An’ dinna for a kebbuck-heel
 Let lasses be affronted
 On sic a day!


Now Clinkumbell, wi’ rattlin tow,
 Begins to jow an’ croon;
Some swagger hame the best they dow,
 Some wait the afternoon.
At slaps the billies halt a blink,
 Till lasses strip their shoon:
Wi’ faith an’ hope, an’ love an’ drink,
 They’re a’ in famous tune
 For crack that day.


How mony hearts this day converts
 O’ sinners and o’ lasses!
Their hearts o’ stane, gin night, are gane
 As saft as ony flesh is:
There’s some are fou o’ love divine;
 There’s some are fou o’ brandy;
An’ mony jobs that day begin,
 May end in houghmagandie
 Some ither day.


 Note 1. “Holy Fair” is a common phrase in the west of Scotland for a sacramental occasion.—R. B. [back]
Note 2. Racer Jess (d. 1813) was a half-witted daughter of Poosie Nansie. She was a great pedestrian. [back]
Note 3. Rev. Alexander Moodie of Riccarton. [back]
Note 4. Rev. George Smith of Galston. [back]
Note 5. Rev. Wm. Peebles of Newton-upon-Ayr. [back]
Note 6. A street so called which faces the tent in Mauchline.—R. B. [back]
Note 7. Rev. Alex. Miller, afterward of Kilmaurs. [back]