Written by
Robert Burns |
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]
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Written by
Eugene Field |
Of all the opry-houses then obtaining in the West
The one which Milton Tootle owned was, by all odds, the best;
Milt, being rich, was much too proud to run the thing alone,
So he hired an "acting manager," a gruff old man named Krone--
A stern, commanding man with piercing eyes and flowing beard,
And his voice assumed a thunderous tone when Jack and I appeared;
He said that Julius Caesar had been billed a week or so,
And would have to have some armies by the time he reached St. Jo!
O happy days, when Tragedy still winged an upward flight,
When actors wore tin helmets and cambric robes at night!
O happy days, when sounded in the public's rapturous ears
The creak of pasteboard armor and the clash of wooden spears!
O happy times for Jack and me and that one other supe
That then and there did constitute the noblest Roman's troop!
With togas, battle axes, shields, we made a dazzling show,
When we were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
We wheeled and filed and double-quicked wherever Brutus led,
The folks applauding what we did as much as what he said;
'T was work, indeed; yet Jack and I were willing to allow
'T was easier following Brutus than following father's plough;
And at each burst of cheering, our valor would increase--
We tramped a thousand miles that night, at fifty cents apiece!
For love of Art--not lust for gold--consumed us years ago,
When we were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
To-day, while walking in the Square, Jack Langrish says to me:
"My friend, the drama nowadays ain't what it used to be!
These farces and these comedies--how feebly they compare
With that mantle of the tragic art which Forrest used to wear!
My soul is warped with bitterness to think that you and I--
Co-heirs to immortality in seasons long gone by--
Now draw a paltry stipend from a Boston comic show,
We, who were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!"
And so we talked and so we mused upon the whims of Fate
That had degraded Tragedy from its old, supreme estate;
And duly, at the Morton bar, we stigmatized the age
As sinfully subversive of the interests of the Stage!
For Jack and I were actors in the halcyon, palmy days
Long, long before the Hoyt school of farce became the craze;
Yet, as I now recall it, it was twenty years ago
That we were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
We were by birth descended from a race of farmer kings
Who had done eternal battle with grasshoppers and things;
But the Kansas farms grew tedious--we pined for that delight
We read of in the Clipper in the barber's shop by night!
We would be actors--Jack and I--and so we stole away
From our native spot, Wathena, one dull September day,
And started for Missouri--ah, little did we know
We were going to train as soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
Our army numbered three in all--Marc Antony's was four;
Our army hankered after fame, but Marc's was after gore!
And when we reached Philippi, at the outset we were met
With an inartistic gusto I can never quite forget.
For Antony's overwhelming force of thumpers seemed to be
Resolved to do "them Kansas jays"--and that meant Jack and me!
My lips were sealed but that it seems quite proper you should know
That Rome was nowhere in it at Philippi in St. Jo!
I've known the slow-consuming grief and ostentatious pain
Accruing from McKean Buchanan's melancholy Dane;
Away out West I've witnessed Bandmann's peerless hardihood,
With Arthur Cambridge have I wrought where walking was not good;
In every phase of horror have I bravely borne my part,
And even on my uppers have I proudly stood for Art!
And, after all my suffering, it were not hard to show
That I got my allopathic dose with Brutus at St. Jo!
That army fell upon me in a most bewildering rage
And scattered me and mine upon that histrionic stage;
My toga rent, my helmet gone and smashed to smithereens,
They picked me up and hove me through whole centuries of scenes!
I sailed through Christian eras and mediæval gloom
And fell from Arden forest into Juliet's painted tomb!
Oh, yes, I travelled far and fast that night, and I can show
The scars of honest wounds I got with Brutus in St. Jo!
Ah me, old Davenport is gone, of fickle fame forgot,
And Barrett sleeps forever in a much neglected spot;
Fred Warde, the papers tell me, in far woolly western lands
Still flaunts the banner of high Tragic Art at one-night stands;
And Jack and I, in Charley Hoyt's Bostonian dramas wreak
Our vengeance on creation at some eensty dolls per week.
By which you see that public taste has fallen mighty low
Since we fought as Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
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