Written by
Robert Burns |
THOU, Nature, partial Nature, I arraign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain.
The peopled fold thy kindly care have found,
The hornèd bull, tremendous, spurns the ground;
The lordly lion has enough and more,
The forest trembles at his very roar;
Thou giv’st the ass his hide, the snail his shell,
The puny wasp, victorious, guards his cell.
Thy minions, kings defend, controul devour,
In all th’ omnipotence of rule and power:
Foxes and statesmen subtle wiles ensure;
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure:
Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgehog, in their robes, are snug:
E’en silly women have defensive arts,
Their eyes, their tongues—and nameless other parts.
But O thou cruel stepmother and hard,
To thy poor fenceless, naked child, the Bard!
A thing unteachable in worldly skill,
And half an idiot too, more helpless still:
No heels to bear him from the op’ning dun,
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun:
No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn,
And those, alas! not Amalthea’s horn:
No nerves olfact’ry, true to Mammon’s foot,
Or grunting, grub sagacious, evil’s root:
The silly sheep that wanders wild astray,
Is not more friendless, is not more a prey;
Vampyre-booksellers drain him to the heart,
And viper-critics cureless venom dart.
Critics! appll’d I venture on the name,
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame,
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes,
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose:
By blockhead’s daring into madness stung,
His heart by wanton, causeless malice wrung,
His well-won ways-than life itself more dear—
By miscreants torn who ne’er one sprig must wear;
Foil’d, bleeding, tortur’d in th’ unequal strife,
The hapless Poet flounces on through life,
Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fired,
And fled each Muse that glorious once inspir’d,
Low-sunk in squalid, unprotected age,
Dead even resentment for his injur’d page,
He heeds no more the ruthless critics’ rage.
So by some hedge the generous steed deceas’d,
For half-starv’d, snarling curs a dainty feast;
By toil and famine worn to skin and bone,
Lies, senseless of each tugging *****’s son.
· · · · · · A little upright, pert, tart, tripping wight,
And still his precious self his dear delight;
Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets,
Better than e’er the fairest she he meets;
Much specious lore, but little understood,
(Veneering oft outshines the solid wood),
His solid sense, by inches you must tell,
But mete his cunning by the Scottish ell!
A man of fashion too, he made his tour,
Learn’d “vive la bagatelle et vive l’amour;”
So travell’d monkeys their grimace improve,
Polish their grin-nay, sigh for ladies’ love!
His meddling vanity, a busy fiend,
Still making work his selfish craft must mend.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Crochallan came,
The old cock’d hat, the brown surtout—the same;
His grisly beard just bristling in its might—
’Twas four long nights and days from shaving-night;
His uncomb’d, hoary locks, wild-staring, thatch’d
A head, for thought profound and clear, unmatch’d;
Yet, tho’ his caustic wit was biting-rude,
His heart was warm, benevolent and good.
· · · · · · O Dulness, portion of the truly blest!
Calm, shelter’d haven of eternal rest!
Thy sons ne’er madden in the fierce extremes
Of Fortune’s polar frost, or torrid beams;
If mantling high she fills the golden cup,
With sober, selfish ease they sip it up;
Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve,
They only wonder “some folks” do not starve!
The grave, sage hern thus easy picks his frog,
And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog.
When disappointment snaps the thread of Hope,
When, thro’ disastrous night, they darkling grope,
With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear,
And just conclude that “fools are Fortune’s care:”
So, heavy, passive to the tempest’s shocks,
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox.
Not so the idle Muses’ mad-cap train,
Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain;
In equanimity they never dwell,
By turns in soaring heaven, or vaulted hell!
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
DEAR SMITH, the slee’st, pawkie thief,
That e’er attempted stealth or rief!
Ye surely hae some warlock-brief
Owre human hearts;
For ne’er a bosom yet was prief
Against your arts.
For me, I swear by sun an’ moon,
An’ ev’ry star that blinks aboon,
Ye’ve cost me twenty pair o’ shoon,
Just gaun to see you;
An’ ev’ry ither pair that’s done,
Mair taen I’m wi’ you.
That auld, capricious carlin, Nature,
To mak amends for scrimpit stature,
She’s turn’d you off, a human creature
On her first plan,
And in her freaks, on ev’ry feature
She’s wrote the Man.
Just now I’ve ta’en the fit o’ rhyme,
My barmie noddle’s working prime.
My fancy yerkit up sublime,
Wi’ hasty summon;
Hae ye a leisure-moment’s time
To hear what’s comin?
Some rhyme a neibor’s name to lash;
Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu’ cash;
Some rhyme to court the countra clash,
An’ raise a din;
For me, an aim I never fash;
I rhyme for fun.
The star that rules my luckless lot,
Has fated me the russet coat,
An’ damn’d my fortune to the groat;
But, in requit,
Has blest me with a random-shot
O’countra wit.
This while my notion’s taen a sklent,
To try my fate in guid, black prent;
But still the mair I’m that way bent,
Something cries “Hooklie!”
I red you, honest man, tak tent?
Ye’ll shaw your folly;
“There’s ither poets, much your betters,
Far seen in Greek, deep men o’ letters,
Hae thought they had ensur’d their debtors,
A’ future ages;
Now moths deform, in shapeless tatters,
Their unknown pages.”
Then farewell hopes of laurel-boughs,
To garland my poetic brows!
Henceforth I’ll rove where busy ploughs
Are whistlin’ thrang,
An’ teach the lanely heights an’ howes
My rustic sang.
I’ll wander on, wi’ tentless heed
How never-halting moments speed,
Till fate shall snap the brittle thread;
Then, all unknown,
I’ll lay me with th’ inglorious dead
Forgot and gone!
But why o’ death being a tale?
Just now we’re living sound and hale;
Then top and maintop crowd the sail,
Heave Care o’er-side!
And large, before Enjoyment’s gale,
Let’s tak the tide.
This life, sae far’s I understand,
Is a’ enchanted fairy-land,
Where Pleasure is the magic-wand,
That, wielded right,
Maks hours like minutes, hand in hand,
Dance by fu’ light.
The magic-wand then let us wield;
For ance that five-an’-forty’s speel’d,
See, crazy, weary, joyless eild,
Wi’ wrinkl’d face,
Comes hostin, hirplin owre the field,
We’ creepin pace.
When ance life’s day draws near the gloamin,
Then fareweel vacant, careless roamin;
An’ fareweel cheerfu’ tankards foamin,
An’ social noise:
An’ fareweel dear, deluding woman,
The Joy of joys!
O Life! how pleasant, in thy morning,
Young Fancy’s rays the hills adorning!
Cold-pausing Caution’s lesson scorning,
We frisk away,
Like school-boys, at th’ expected warning,
To joy an’ play.
We wander there, we wander here,
We eye the rose upon the brier,
Unmindful that the thorn is near,
Among the leaves;
And tho’ the puny wound appear,
Short while it grieves.
Some, lucky, find a flow’ry spot,
For which they never toil’d nor swat;
They drink the sweet and eat the fat,
But care or pain;
And haply eye the barren hut
With high disdain.
With steady aim, some Fortune chase;
Keen hope does ev’ry sinew brace;
Thro’ fair, thro’ foul, they urge the race,
An’ seize the prey:
Then cannie, in some cozie place,
They close the day.
And others, like your humble servan’,
Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin,
To right or left eternal swervin,
They zig-zag on;
Till, curst with age, obscure an’ starvin,
They aften groan.
Alas! what bitter toil an’ straining—
But truce with peevish, poor complaining!
Is fortune’s fickle Luna waning?
E’n let her gang!
Beneath what light she has remaining,
Let’s sing our sang.
My pen I here fling to the door,
And kneel, ye Pow’rs! and warm implore,
“Tho’ I should wander Terra o’er,
In all her climes,
Grant me but this, I ask no more,
Aye rowth o’ rhymes.
“Gie dreepin roasts to countra lairds,
Till icicles hing frae their beards;
Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guards,
And maids of honour;
An’ yill an’ whisky gie to cairds,
Until they sconner.
“A title, Dempster 1 merits it;
A garter gie to Willie Pitt;
Gie wealth to some be-ledger’d cit,
In cent. per cent.;
But give me real, sterling wit,
And I’m content.
“While ye are pleas’d to keep me hale,
I’ll sit down o’er my scanty meal,
Be’t water-brose or muslin-kail,
Wi’ cheerfu’ face,
As lang’s the Muses dinna fail
To say the grace.”
An anxious e’e I never throws
Behint my lug, or by my nose;
I jouk beneath Misfortune’s blows
As weel’s I may;
Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose,
I rhyme away.
O ye douce folk that live by rule,
Grave, tideless-blooded, calm an’cool,
Compar’d wi’ you—O fool! fool! fool!
How much unlike!
Your hearts are just a standing pool,
Your lives, a dyke!
Nae hair-brain’d, sentimental traces
In your unletter’d, nameless faces!
In arioso trills and graces
Ye never stray;
But gravissimo, solemn basses
Ye hum away.
Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye’re wise;
Nae ferly tho’ ye do despise
The hairum-scairum, ram-stam boys,
The rattling squad:
I see ye upward cast your eyes—
Ye ken the road!
Whilst I—but I shall haud me there,
Wi’ you I’ll scarce gang ony where—
Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair,
But quat my sang,
Content wi’ you to mak a pair.
Whare’er I gang.
Note 1. George Dempster of Dunnichen, M.P. [back]
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
LATE crippl’d of an arm, and now a leg,
About to beg a pass for leave to beg;
Dull, listless, teas’d, dejected, and deprest
(Nature is adverse to a cripple’s rest);
Will generous Graham list to his Poet’s wail?
(It soothes poor Misery, hearkening to her tale)
And hear him curse the light he first survey’d,
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?
Thou, Nature! partial Nature, I arraign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain;
The lion and the bull thy care have found,
One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground;
Thou giv’st the ass his hide, the snail his shell;
Th’ envenom’d wasp, victorious, guards his cell;
Thy minions kings defend, control, devour,
In all th’ omnipotence of rule and power;
Foxes and statesmen subtile wiles ensure;
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure;
Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgehog in their robes, are snug;
Ev’n silly woman has her warlike arts,
Her tongue and eyes—her dreaded spear and darts.
But Oh! thou bitter step-mother and hard,
To thy poor, fenceless, naked child—the Bard!
A thing unteachable in world’s skill,
And half an idiot too, more helpless still:
No heels to bear him from the op’ning dun;
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun;
No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn,
And those, alas! not, Amalthea’s horn:
No nerves olfact’ry, Mammon’s trusty cur,
Clad in rich Dulness’ comfortable fur;
In naked feeling, and in aching pride,
He bears th’ unbroken blast from ev’ry side:
Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart,
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.
Critics—appall’d, I venture on the name;
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame:
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes;
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose:
His heart by causeless wanton malice wrung,
By blockheads’ daring into madness stung;
His well-won bays, than life itself more dear,
By miscreants torn, who ne’er one sprig must wear;
Foil’d, bleeding, tortur’d in th’ unequal strife,
The hapless Poet flounders on thro’ life:
Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fir’d,
And fled each muse that glorious once inspir’d,
Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age,
Dead even resentment for his injur’d page,
He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic’s rage!
So, by some hedge, the gen’rous steed deceas’d,
For half-starv’d snarling curs a dainty feast;
By toil and famine wore to skin and bone,
Lies, senseless of each tugging *****’s son.
O Dulness! portion of the truly blest!
Calm shelter’d haven of eternal rest!
Thy sons ne’er madden in the fierce extremes
Of Fortune’s polar frost, or torrid beams.
If mantling high she fills the golden cup,
With sober selfish ease they sip it up;
Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve,
They only wonder “some folks” do not starve.
The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog,
And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog.
When disappointments snaps the clue of hope,
And thro’ disastrous night they darkling grope,
With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear,
And just conclude that “fools are fortune’s care.”
So, heavy, passive to the tempest’s shocks,
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox.
Not so the idle Muses’ mad-cap train,
Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain;
In equanimity they never dwell,
By turns in soaring heav’n, or vaulted hell.
I dread thee, Fate, relentless and severe,
With all a poet’s, husband’s, father’s fear!
Already one strong hold of hope is lost—
Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust
(Fled, like the sun eclips’d as noon appears,
And left us darkling in a world of tears);
O! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish pray’r!
Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare!
Thro’ a long life his hopes and wishes crown,
And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down!
May bliss domestic smooth his private path;
Give energy to life; and soothe his latest breath,
With many a filial tear circling the bed of death!
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
WHEN Nature her great master-piece design’d,
And fram’d her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form’d of various parts the various Man.
Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise’ whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics’ many-apron’d kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net:
The caput mortuum of gross desires
Makes a material for mere knights and squires;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow,
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,
Then marks th’ unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines;
Last, she sublimes th’ Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.
The order’d system fair before her stood,
Nature, well pleas’d, pronounc’d it very good;
But ere she gave creating labour o’er,
Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more.
Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter,
Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter;
With arch-alacrity and conscious glee,
(Nature may have her whim as well as we,
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it),
She forms the thing and christens it—a Poet:
Creature, tho’ oft the prey of care and sorrow,
When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow;
A being form’d t’ amuse his graver friends,
Admir’d and prais’d-and there the homage ends;
A mortal quite unfit for Fortune’s strife,
Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life;
Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give,
Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live;
Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groan,
Yet frequent all unheeded in his own.
But honest Nature is not quite a Turk,
She laugh’d at first, then felt for her poor work:
Pitying the propless climber of mankind,
She cast about a standard tree to find;
And, to support his helpless woodbine state,
Attach’d him to the generous, truly great:
A title, and the only one I claim,
To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham.
Pity the tuneful Muses’ hapless train,
Weak, timid landsmen on life’s stormy main!
Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff,
That never gives—tho’ humbly takes enough;
The little fate allows, they share as soon,
Unlike sage proverb’d Wisdom’s hard-wrung boon:
The world were blest did bliss on them depend,
Ah, that “the friendly e’er should want a friend!”
Let Prudence number o’er each sturdy son,
Who life and wisdom at one race begun,
Who feel by reason and who give by rule,
(Instinct’s a brute, and sentiment a fool!)
Who make poor “will do” wait upon “I should”—
We own they’re prudent, but who feels they’re good?
Ye wise ones hence! ye hurt the social eye!
God’s image rudely etch’d on base alloy!
But come ye who the godlike pleasure know,
Heaven’s attribute distinguished—to bestow!
Whose arms of love would grasp the human race:
Come thou who giv’st with all a courtier’s grace;
FRIEND OF MY LIFE, true patron of my rhymes!
Prop of my dearest hopes for future times.
Why shrinks my soul half blushing, half afraid,
Backward, abash’d to ask thy friendly aid?
I know my need, I know thy giving hand,
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command;
But there are such who court the tuneful Nine—
Heavens! should the branded character be mine!
Whose verse in manhood’s pride sublimely flows,
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose.
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit
Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit!
Seek not the proofs in private life to find
Pity the best of words should be but wind!
So, to heaven’s gates the lark’s shrill song ascends,
But grovelling on the earth the carol ends.
In all the clam’rous cry of starving want,
They dun Benevolence with shameless front;
Oblige them, patronise their tinsel lays—
They persecute you all your future days!
Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain,
My horny fist assume the plough again,
The pie-bald jacket let me patch once more,
On eighteenpence a week I’ve liv’d before.
Tho’, thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift,
I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift:
That, plac’d by thee upon the wish’d-for height,
Where, man and nature fairer in her sight,
My Muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight.
|
Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
NOUGHT more accursed in war I know
Than getting off scot-free;
Inured to danger, on we go
In constant victory;
We first unpack, then pack again,
With only this reward,
That when we're marching, we complain,
And when in camp, are bor'd.
The time for billeting comes next,--
The peasant curses it;
Each nobleman is sorely vex'd,
'Tis hated by the cit.
Be civil, bad though be thy food,
The clowns politely treat;
If to our hosts we're ever rude,
Jail-bread we're forced to eat.
And when the cannons growl around,
And small arms rattle clear,
And trumpet, trot, and drum resound,
We merry all appear;
And as it in the fight may chance,
We yield, then charge amain,
And now retire, and now advance,
And yet a cross ne'er gain.
At length there comes a musket-ball,
And hits the leg, please Heaven;
And then our troubles vanish all,
For to the town we're driven,
(Well cover'd by the victor's force,)
Where we in wrath first came,--
The women, frightened then, of course,
Are loving now and tame.
Cellar and heart are open'd wide,
The cook's allow'd no rest;
While beds with softest down supplied
Are by our members press'd.
The nimble lads upon us wait,
No sleep the hostess takes
Her shift is torn in pieces straight,--
What wondrous lint it makes!
If one has tended carefully
The hero's wounded limb,
Her neighbour cannot rest, for she
Has also tended him.
A third arrives in equal haste,
At length they all are there,
And in the middle he is placed
Of the whole band so fair!
On good authority the king
Hears how we love the fight,
And bids them cross and ribbon bring,
Our coat and breast to dight.
Say if a better fate can e'er
A son of Mars pursue!
'Midst tears at length we go from there,
Beloved and honour'd too.
1814.
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
NO churchman am I for to rail and to write,
No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight,
No sly man of business contriving a snare,
For a big-belly’d bottle’s the whole of my care.
The peer I don’t envy, I give him his bow;
I scorn not the peasant, though ever so low;
But a club of good fellows, like those that are here,
And a bottle like this, are my glory and care.
Here passes the squire on his brother-his horse;
There centum per centum, the cit with his purse;
But see you the Crown how it waves in the air?
There a big-belly’d bottle still eases my care.
The wife of my bosom, alas! she did die;
for sweet consolation to church I did fly;
I found that old Solomon proved it fair,
That a big-belly’d bottle’s a cure for all care.
I once was persuaded a venture to make;
A letter inform’d me that all was to wreck;
But the pursy old landlord just waddl’d upstairs,
With a glorious bottle that ended my cares.
“Life’s cares they are comforts”—a maxim laid down
By the Bard, what d’ye call him, that wore the black gown;
And faith I agree with th’ old prig to a hair,
For a big-belly’d bottle’s a heav’n of a care.
A STANZA ADDED IN A MASON LODGEThen fill up a bumper and make it o’erflow,
And honours masonic prepare for to throw;
May ev’ry true Brother of the Compass and Square
Have a big-belly’d bottle when harass’d with care.
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