The liquid fire of strong desire
I've pour'd it in each bosom ;
Here, on this hand, does Mankind stand,
And there is Beauty's blossom."
The Hero of these artless strains,
A lowly bard was he,
Who sung his rhymes in Coila's plains,
With meikle mirth an' glee;
Kind Nature's care had given his share
Large, of the flaming current;
And, all devout, he never sought
To stem the sacred torrent.
He felt the powerful, high behest,
Thrill, vital, thro' and thro';
And sought a correspondent breast,
To give obedience due:
Propitious Powers screen'd the
From mildews of abortion;
And lo! the bard-a great reward—
Has got a double portion!
Auld cantie Coil may count the day,
As annual it returns,
The third of Libra's equal sway,
That gave another Burns,
With future rhymes, an' other times,
To emulate his sire :
To sing auld Coil in nobler style,
With more poetic fire.
Ye Powers of peace and peaceful song,
Look down with gracious eyes;
And bless auld Coila, large and long,
With multiplying joys;
Lang may she stand to prop the land,
The flow'r of ancient nations;
And Burnses spring, her fame to sing,
To endless generations!
REPLY TO A TRIMMING EPISTLE
RECEIVED FROM A TAILOR
WHAT ails ye now, ye lousie bitch,
To thresh my back at sic a pitch?
Losh, man! hae mercy wi' your natch,
Your bodkin's bauld,
I didna suffer half sae much
Frae Daddie Auld.
What tho' at times, when I grow crouse,
I gie their wames a random pouse,
Is that enough for you to souse
Gae mind your seam, ye prick-the-louse
An' jag-the-flea!
King David, o' poetic brief,
Wrocht 'mang the lasses sic mischief
As filled his after-life wi' grief,
among the chief
O' lang-syne saunts.
And maybe, Tam, for a' my cants,
My wicked rhymes, an' drucken rants,
I'll gie auld cloven Clootie's haunts
An unco slip yet,
An' snugly sit amang the saunts,
At Davie's hip yet!
But, fegs! the session says I maun
Gae fa' upo' anither plan
Than garrin lasses coup the cran,
Clean heels ower body,
An' sairly thole their mother's ban
Afore the howdy.
This leads me on to tell for sport,
How I did wi' the Session sort;
Auld Clinkum, at the inner port,
Cried three times, "Robin!
Come hither lad, and answer for't,
Ye're blam'd for jobbin !
Wï' pinch I put a Sunday's face on,
An' snoov'd awa before the Session:
I made an open, fair confession—
I scorn'd to lee,
Mess John beyond expression,
Fell foul o' me.
A fornicator-loun he call'd me,
An' said my faut frae bliss expell❜d me ;
I own'd the tale was true he tell'd me,
“But, what the matter?
(Quo' I) I fear unless ye geld me,
I'll ne'er be better ! "
"Geld you! (quo' he) an' what for no?
If that your right hand, leg, or toe
Should ever prove your sp'ritual foe,
You should remember
To cut it aff-an' what for no
Your dearest member?"
"Na, na, (quo' I,) I'm no' for that, Gelding's nae better than 'tis ca't; I'd rather suffer for my faut
As sair owre hip as ye can draw't,
Tho' I should rue it.
"Or, gin ye like to end the bother,
To please us a'-I've just ae ither-
When next wi' yon lass I forgather,
Whate'er betide it,
I'll frankly gie her't a' thegither,
An' let her guide it."
But, sir, this pleas'd them warst of a',
An' therefore, Tam, when that I saw,
I said "Gude night," an' cam' awa',
An' left the Session;
I saw they were resolvèd a'
On my oppression.
THE BRIGS OF AYR
Inscribed to JOHN BALLANTINE, Esq., Ayr
THE simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough,
Learning his tuneful trade from ev'ry bough;
The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,
Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn
bush;
The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill,
Or deep-ton'd plovers grey, wild whistling o'er
the hill;
Shall he-nurst in the peasant's lowly shed,
To hardy independence bravely bred,
In the By early poverty to hardship steel'd,
end of And train'd to arms in stern Misfortune's field—
Autumn Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
Or labour hard the panegyric close,
With all the venal soul of dedicating prose ?
No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings,
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard,
Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward.
Still, if some patron's gen'rous care he trace,
Skill'd in the secret to bestow with grace;
When Ballantine befriends his humble name,
And hands the rustic stranger up to fame,
With heartfelt throes his grateful bosom swells,
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.
'Twas when the stacks get on their winter hap,
And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap;
Potatoe-bings are snuggèd up frae skaith
O' coming Winter's biting, frosty breath;
The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils,
Unnumber'd buds' an' flow'rs' delicious spoils,
Seal'd up with frugal care in massive waxen piles,
Are doom'd by Man, that tyrant o'er the weak,
The death o' devils, smoor'd wi' brimstone reek :
The thundering guns are heard on ev'ry side,
The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide;
The feather'd field-mates, bound by Nature's tie,
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie:
(What warm, poetic heart but inly bleeds,
And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds!)
Nae mair the flow'r in field or meadow springs,
Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings,
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