Written by
Robert Burns |
I GAT your letter, winsome Willie;
Wi’ gratefu’ heart I thank you brawlie;
Tho’ I maun say’t, I wad be silly,
And unco vain,
Should I believe, my coaxin billie
Your flatterin strain.
But I’se believe ye kindly meant it:
I sud be laith to think ye hinted
Ironic satire, sidelins sklented
On my poor Musie;
Tho’ in sic phraisin terms ye’ve penn’d it,
I scarce excuse ye.
My senses wad be in a creel,
Should I but dare a hope to speel
Wi’ Allan, or wi’ Gilbertfield,
The braes o’ fame;
Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel,
A deathless name.
(O Fergusson! thy glorious parts
Ill suited law’s dry, musty arts!
My curse upon your whunstane hearts,
Ye E’nbrugh gentry!
The tithe o’ what ye waste at cartes
Wad stow’d his pantry!)
Yet when a tale comes i’ my head,
Or lassies gie my heart a screed—
As whiles they’re like to be my dead,
(O sad disease!)
I kittle up my rustic reed;
It gies me ease.
Auld Coila now may fidge fu’ fain,
She’s gotten poets o’ her ain;
Chiels wha their chanters winna hain,
But tune their lays,
Till echoes a’ resound again
Her weel-sung praise.
Nae poet thought her worth his while,
To set her name in measur’d style;
She lay like some unkenn’d-of-isle
Beside New Holland,
Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil
Besouth Magellan.
Ramsay an’ famous Fergusson
Gied Forth an’ Tay a lift aboon;
Yarrow an’ Tweed, to monie a tune,
Owre Scotland rings;
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an’ Doon
Naebody sings.
Th’ Illissus, Tiber, Thames, an’ Seine,
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu’ line:
But Willie, set your fit to mine,
An’ cock your crest;
We’ll gar our streams an’ burnies shine
Up wi’ the best!
We’ll sing auld Coila’s plains an’ fells,
Her moors red-brown wi’ heather bells,
Her banks an’ braes, her dens and dells,
Whare glorious Wallace
Aft bure the gree, as story tells,
Frae Suthron billies.
At Wallace’ name, what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood!
Oft have our fearless fathers strode
By Wallace’ side,
Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod,
Or glorious died!
O, sweet are Coila’s haughs an’ woods,
When lintwhites chant amang the buds,
And jinkin hares, in amorous whids,
Their loves enjoy;
While thro’ the braes the cushat croods
With wailfu’ cry!
Ev’n winter bleak has charms to me,
When winds rave thro’ the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree
Are hoary gray;
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,
Dark’ning the day!
O Nature! a’ thy shews an’ forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms!
Whether the summer kindly warms,
Wi’ life an light;
Or winter howls, in gusty storms,
The lang, dark night!
The muse, nae poet ever fand her,
Till by himsel he learn’d to wander,
Adown some trottin burn’s meander,
An’ no think lang:
O sweet to stray, an’ pensive ponder
A heart-felt sang!
The war’ly race may drudge an’ drive,
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an’ strive;
Let me fair Nature’s face descrive,
And I, wi’ pleasure,
Shall let the busy, grumbling hive
Bum owre their treasure.
Fareweel, “my rhyme-composing” brither!
We’ve been owre lang unkenn’d to ither:
Now let us lay our heads thegither,
In love fraternal:
May envy wallop in a tether,
Black fiend, infernal!
While Highlandmen hate tools an’ taxes;
While moorlan’s herds like guid, fat braxies;
While terra firma, on her axis,
Diurnal turns;
Count on a friend, in faith an’ practice,
In Robert Burns.
POSTCRIPTMY memory’s no worth a preen;
I had amaist forgotten clean,
Ye bade me write you what they mean
By this “new-light,”
’Bout which our herds sae aft hae been
Maist like to fight.
In days when mankind were but callans
At grammar, logic, an’ sic talents,
They took nae pains their speech to balance,
Or rules to gie;
But spak their thoughts in plain, braid lallans,
Like you or me.
In thae auld times, they thought the moon,
Just like a sark, or pair o’ shoon,
Wore by degrees, till her last roon
Gaed past their viewin;
An’ shortly after she was done
They gat a new ane.
This passed for certain, undisputed;
It ne’er cam i’ their heads to doubt it,
Till chiels gat up an’ wad confute it,
An’ ca’d it wrang;
An’ muckle din there was about it,
Baith loud an’ lang.
Some herds, weel learn’d upo’ the beuk,
Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk;
For ’twas the auld moon turn’d a neuk
An’ out of’ sight,
An’ backlins-comin to the leuk
She grew mair bright.
This was deny’d, it was affirm’d;
The herds and hissels were alarm’d
The rev’rend gray-beards rav’d an’ storm’d,
That beardless laddies
Should think they better wer inform’d,
Than their auld daddies.
Frae less to mair, it gaed to sticks;
Frae words an’ aiths to clours an’ nicks;
An monie a fallow gat his licks,
Wi’ hearty crunt;
An’ some, to learn them for their tricks,
Were hang’d an’ brunt.
This game was play’d in mony lands,
An’ auld-light caddies bure sic hands,
That faith, the youngsters took the sands
Wi’ nimble shanks;
Till lairds forbad, by strict commands,
Sic bluidy pranks.
But new-light herds gat sic a cowe,
Folk thought them ruin’d stick-an-stowe;
Till now, amaist on ev’ry knowe
Ye’ll find ane plac’d;
An’ some their new-light fair avow,
Just quite barefac’d.
Nae doubt the auld-light flocks are bleatin;
Their zealous herds are vex’d an’ sweatin;
Mysel’, I’ve even seen them greetin
Wi’ girnin spite,
To hear the moon sae sadly lied on
By word an’ write.
But shortly they will cowe the louns!
Some auld-light herds in neebor touns
Are mind’t, in things they ca’ balloons,
To tak a flight;
An’ stay ae month amang the moons
An’ see them right.
Guid observation they will gie them;
An’ when the auld moon’s gaun to lea’e them,
The hindmaist shaird, they’ll fetch it wi’ them
Just i’ their pouch;
An’ when the new-light billies see them,
I think they’ll crouch!
Sae, ye observe that a’ this clatter
Is naething but a “moonshine matter”;
But tho’ dull prose-folk Latin splatter
In logic tulyie,
I hope we bardies ken some better
Than mind sic brulyie.
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
WITH secret throes I marked that earth,
That cottage, witness of my birth;
And near I saw, bold issuing forth
In youthful pride,
A Lindsay race of noble worth,
Famed far and wide.
Where, hid behind a spreading wood,
An ancient Pict-built mansion stood,
I spied, among an angel brood,
A female pair;
Sweet shone their high maternal blood,
And father’s air. 1
An ancient tower 2 to memory brought
How Dettingen’s bold hero fought;
Still, far from sinking into nought,
It owns a lord
Who far in western climates fought,
With trusty sword.
Among the rest I well could spy
One gallant, graceful, martial boy,
The soldier sparkled in his eye,
A diamond water.
I blest that noble badge with joy,
That owned me frater. 3
After 20th stanza of the text (at “Dispensing good”):—Near by arose a mansion fine 4
The seat of many a muse divine;
Not rustic muses such as mine,
With holly crown’d,
But th’ ancient, tuneful, laurell’d Nine,
From classic ground.
I mourn’d the card that Fortune dealt,
To see where bonie Whitefoords dwelt; 5
But other prospects made me melt,
That village near; 6
There Nature, Friendship, Love, I felt,
Fond-mingling, dear!
Hail! Nature’s pang, more strong than death!
Warm Friendship’s glow, like kindling wrath!
Love, dearer than the parting breath
Of dying friend!
Not ev’n with life’s wild devious path,
Your force shall end!
The Power that gave the soft alarms
In blooming Whitefoord’s rosy charms,
Still threats the tiny, feather’d arms,
The barbed dart,
While lovely Wilhelmina warms
The coldest heart. 7
After 21st stanza of the text (at “That, to adore”):—Where Lugar leaves his moorland plaid, 8
Where lately Want was idly laid,
I markèd busy, bustling Trade,
In fervid flame,
Beneath a Patroness’ aid,
Of noble name.
Wild, countless hills I could survey,
And countless flocks as wild as they;
But other scenes did charms display,
That better please,
Where polish’d manners dwell with Gray,
In rural ease. 9
Where Cessnock pours with gurgling sound; 10
And Irwine, marking out the bound,
Enamour’d of the scenes around,
Slow runs his race,
A name I doubly honour’d found, 11
With knightly grace.
Brydon’s brave ward, 12 I saw him stand,
Fame humbly offering her hand,
And near, his kinsman’s rustic band, 13
With one accord,
Lamenting their late blessed land
Must change its lord.
The owner of a pleasant spot,
Near and sandy wilds, I last did note; 14
A heart too warm, a pulse too hot
At times, o’erran:
But large in ev’ry feature wrote,
Appear’d the Man.
Note 1. Sundrum.—R. B. [back]
Note 2. Stair.—R. B. [back]
Note 3. Captain James Montgomerie, Master of St. James’ Lodge, Tarbolton, to which the author has the honour to belong.—R. B. [back]
Note 4. Auchinleck.—R. B. [back]
Note 5. Ballochmyle. [back]
Note 6. Mauchline. [back]
Note 7. Miss Wilhelmina Alexander. [back]
Note 8. Cumnock.—R. B. [back]
Note 9. Mr. Farquhar Gray.—R. B. [back]
Note 10. Auchinskieth.—R. B. [back]
Note 11. Caprington.—R. B. [back]
Note 12. Colonel Fullerton.—R. B. [back]
Note 13. Dr. Fullerton.—R. B. [back]
Note 14. Orangefield.—R. B. [back]
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
BEHIND yon hills where Lugar flows,
’Mang moors an’ mosses many, O,
The wintry sun the day has clos’d,
And I’ll awa to Nanie, O.
The westlin wind blaws loud an’ shill;
The night’s baith mirk and rainy, O;
But I’ll get my plaid an’ out I’ll steal,
An’ owre the hill to Nanie, O.
My Nanie’s charming, sweet, an’ young;
Nae artfu’ wiles to win ye, O:
May ill befa’ the flattering tongue
That wad beguile my Nanie, O.
Her face is fair, her heart is true;
As spotless as she’s bonie, O:
The op’ning gowan, wat wi’ dew,
Nae purer is than Nanie, O.
A country lad is my degree,
An’ few there be that ken me, O;
But what care I how few they be,
I’m welcome aye to Nanie, O.
My riches a’s my penny-fee,
An’ I maun guide it cannie, O;
But warl’s gear ne’er troubles me,
My thoughts are a’ my Nanie, O.
Our auld guidman delights to view
His sheep an’ kye thrive bonie, O;
But I’m as blythe that hands his pleugh,
An’ has nae care but Nanie, O.
Come weel, come woe, I care na by;
I’ll tak what Heav’n will sen’ me, O:
Nae ither care in life have I,
But live, an’ love my Nanie, O
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