by Robert Burns
They only wonder “some folks” do not starve!
The grave, sage hern thus easy picks his frog, 80
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:” 85
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, 90
By turns in soaring heaven, or vaulted hell!
Chronological List of Poems
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243.
Elegy on the Year 1788
FOR lords or kings I dinna mourn,
E’en let them die-for that they’re born:
But oh! prodigious to reflec’!
A Towmont, sirs, is gane to wreck!
O Eighty-eight, in thy sma’ space, 5
What dire events hae taken place!
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us!
In what a pickle thou has left us!
The Spanish empire’s tint a head,
And my auld teethless, Bawtie’s dead: 10
The tulyie’s teugh ‘tween Pitt and Fox,
And ‘tween our Maggie’s twa wee cocks;
The tane is game, a bluidy devil,
But to the hen-birds unco civil;
The tither’s something dour o’ treadin, 15
But better stuff ne’er claw’d a middin.
Ye ministers, come mount the poupit,
An’ cry till ye be hearse an’ roupit,
For Eighty-eight, he wished you weel,
An’ gied ye a’ baith gear an’ meal; 20
E’en monc a plack, and mony a peck,
Ye ken yoursels, for little feck!
Ye bonie lasses, dight your e’en,
For some o’ you hae tint a frien’;
In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was taen, 25
What ye’ll ne’er hae to gie again.
Observe the very nowt an’ sheep,
How dowff an’ daviely they creep;
Nay, even the yirth itsel’ does cry,
For E’nburgh wells are grutten dry. 30
O Eighty-nine, thou’s but a bairn,
An’ no owre auld, I hope, to learn!
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care,
Thou now hast got thy Daddy’s chair;
Nae handcuff’d, mizl’d, hap-shackl’d Regent, 35
But, like himsel, a full free agent,
Be sure ye follow out the plan
Nae waur than he did, honest man!
As muckle better as you can.
January, 1, 1789.
Chronological List of Poems
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244.
The Henpecked Husband
Chorus. — Robin shure in hairst,
I shure wi’ him.
Fient a heuk had I,
Yet I stack by him.
I GAED up to Dunse, 5
To warp a wab o’ plaiden,
At his daddie’s yett,
Wha met me but Robin:
Robin shure, &c.
Was na Robin bauld, 10
Tho’ I was a cotter,
Play’d me sic a trick,
An’ me the El’er’s dochter!
Robin shure, &c.
Robin promis’d me 15
A’ my winter vittle;
Fient haet he had but three
Guse-feathers and a whittle!
Robin shure, &c.
Chronological List of Poems
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245.
Versicles on Sign-Posts
CURS’D be the man, the poorest wretch in life,
The crouching vassal to a tyrant wife!
Who has no will but by her high permission,
Who has not sixpence but in her possession;
Who must to he, his dear friend’s secrets tell, 5
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell.
Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
I’d break her spirit or I’d break her heart;
I’d charm her with the magic of a switch,
I’d kiss her maids, and kick the perverse b —— h. 10
Chronological List of Poems
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1789
Chronological List of Poems
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246.
Robin Shure in Hairst (Song)
HIS face with smile eternal drest,
Just like the Landlord’s to his Guest’s,
High as they hang with creaking din,
To index out the Country Inn.
He looked just as your sign-post Lions do, 5
With aspect fierce, and quite as harmless too.
—— —— ——
A head, pure, sinless quite of brain and soul,
The very image of a barber’s Poll;
It shews a human face, and wears a wig,
And looks, when well preserv’d, amazing big. 10
Chronological List of Poems
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247.
Ode, Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. Oswald of Auchencruive
DWELLER in yon dungeon dark,
Hangman of creation! mark,
Who in widow-weeds appears,
Laden with unhonour’d years,
Noosing with care a bursting purse, 5
Baited with many a deadly curse?
STROPHE
View the wither’d Beldam’s face;
Can thy keen inspection trace
Aught of Humanity’s sweet, melting grace?
Note that eye, ‘tis rheum o’erflows; 10
Pity’s flood there never rose,
See these hands ne’er stretched to save,
Hands that took, but never gave:
Keeper of Mammon’s iron chest,
Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest, 15
She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!
ANTISTROPHE
Plunderer of Armies! lift thine eyes,
(A while forbear, ye torturing fiends;)
Seest thou whose step, unwilling, hither bends?
No fallen angel, hurl’d from upper skies; 20
‘Tis thy trusty quondam Mate,
Doom’d to share thy fiery fate;
She, tardy, hell-ward plies.
EPODE
And are they of no more avail,
Ten thousand glittering pounds a-year? 25
In other worlds can Mammon fail,
Omnipotent as he is here!
O, bitter mockery of the pompous bier,
While down the wretched Vital Part is driven!
The cave-lodged Beggar,with a conscience clear, 30
Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heaven.
Chronological List of Poems
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248.
Pegasus at Wanlockhead
WITH Pegasus upon a day,
Apollo, weary flying,
Through frosty hills the journey lay,
On foot the way was plying.
Poor slipshod giddy Pegasus 5
Was but a sorry walker;
To Vulcan then Apollo goes,
To get a frosty caulker.
Obliging Vulcan fell to work,
Threw by his coat and bonnet, 10
And did Sol’s business in a crack;
Sol paid him with a sonnet.
Ye Vulcan’s sons of Wanlockhead,
Pity my sad disaster;
My Pegasus is poorly shod, 15
I’ll pay you like my master.
Chronological List of Poems
249.
Sappho Redivivus: A Fragment
BY all I lov’d, neglected and forgot,
No friendly face e’er lights my squalid cot;
Shunn’d, hated, wrong’d, unpitied, unredrest,
The mock’d quotation of the scorner’s jest!
Ev’n the poor súpport of my wretched life, 5
Snatched by the violence of legal strife.
Oft grateful for my very daily bread
To those my family’s once large bounty fed;
A welcome inmate at their homely fare,
My griefs, my woes, my sighs, my tears they share: 10
(Their vulgar souls unlike the souls refin’d,
The fashioned marble of the polished mind).
In vain would Prudence, with decorous sneer,
Point out a censuring world, and bid me fear;
Above the world, on wings of Love, I rise — 15
I know its worst, and can that worst despise;
Let Prudence’ direst bodements on me fall,
M[ontgomer]y, rich reward, o’erpays them all!
Mild zephyrs waft thee to life’s farthest shore,
Nor think of me and my distress more, — 20
Falsehood accurst! No! still I beg a place,
Still near thy heart some little, little trace:
For that dear trace the world I would resign:
O let me live, and die, and think it mine!
“I burn, I burn, as when thro’ ripen’d corn 25
By driving winds the crackling flames are borne;”
Now raving-wild, I curse that fatal night,
Then bless the hour that charm’d my guilty sight:
In vain the laws their feeble force oppose,
Chain’d at Love’s feet, they groan, his vanquish’d foes. 30
In vain Religion meets my shrinking eye,
I dare not combat, but I turn and fly:
Conscience in vain upbraids th’ unhallow’d fire,
Love grasps her scorpions — stifled they expire!
Reason drops headlong from his sacred throne, 35
Your dear idea reigns, and reigns alone;
Each thought intoxicated homage yields,
And riots wanton in forbidden fields.
By all on high adoring mortals know!
By all the conscious villain fears below! 40
By your dear self! — the last great oath I swear,
Not life, nor soul, were ever half so dear!
Chronological List of Poems
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250.
She’s Fair and Fause (Song)
SHE’S fair and fause that causes my smart,
I lo’ed her meikle and lang;
She’s broken her vow, she’s broken my heart,
And I may e’en gae hang.
A coof cam in wi’ routh o’ gear, 5
And I hae tint my dearest dear;
But Woman is but warld’s gear,
Sae let the bonie lass gang.
Whae’er ye be that woman love,
To this be never blind; 10
Nae ferlie ‘tis tho’ fickle she prove,
A woman has’t by kind.
O Woman lovely, Woman fair!
An angel form’s faun to thy share,
‘Twad been o’er meikle to gi’en thee mair — 15
I mean an angel mind.
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251.
Impromptu Lines to Captain Riddell
On Returning a Newspaper.
YOUR News and Review, sir.
I’ve read through and through, sir,
With little admiring or blaming;
The Papers are barren
Of home-news or foreign, 5
No murders or rapes worth the naming.
Our friends, the Reviewers,
Those chippers and hewers,
Are judges of mortar and stone, sir;
But of meet or unmeet, 10
In a fabric complete,
I’ll boldly pronounce they are none, sir;
My goose-quill too rude is
To tell all your goodness
Bestow’d on your servant, the Poet; 15
Would to God I had one
Like a beam of the sun,
And then all the world, sir, should know it!
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252.
Lines to John M’Murdo of Drumlanrig
Sent with some of the Author’s Poems.
O COULD I give thee India’s wealth,
As I this trifle send;
Because thy joy in both would be
To share them with a friend.
But golden sands did never grace 5
The Heliconian stream;
Then take what gold could never buy —
An honest bard’s esteem.
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253.
Rhyming Reply to a Note from Captain Riddell
DEAR SIR, at ony time or tide,
I’d rather sit wi’ you than ride,
Though ‘twere wi’ royal Geordie:
And trowth, your kindness, soon and late,
Aft gars me to mysel’ look blate — 5
The Lord in Heav’n reward ye!
R. BURNS.
ELLISLAND.
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254.
Caledonia: A Ballad
Tune— “Caledonian Hunts’ Delight” of Mr. Gow.
THERE was once a day, but old Time wasythen young,
That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,
From some of your northern deities sprung,
(Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine?)
From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain, 5
To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would:
Her heav’nly relations there fixed her reign,
And pledg’d her their godheads to warrant it good.
A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war,
The pride of her kindred, the heroine grew: 10
Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore, —
“Whoe’er shall provoke thee, th’ encounter shall rue!”
With tillage or pasture at times she would sport,
To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn;
But chiefly the woods were her fav’rite resort, 15
Her darling amusement, the hounds and the horn.
Long quiet she reigned; till thitherward steers
A flight of bold eagles from Adria’s strand:
Repeated, successive, for many long years,
They darken’d the air, and they plunder’d the land: 20
Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry,
They’d conquer’d and ruin’d a world beside;
She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly,
The daring invaders they fled or they died.
The Cameleon-Savage disturb’d her repose, 25
With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife;
Provok’d beyond bearing, at last she arose,
And robb’d him at once of his hopes and his life:
The Anglian lion, the terror of France,
Oft prowling, ensanguin’d the Tweed’s silver flood; 30
But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance,
He learnèd to fear in his own native wood.
The fell Harpy-raven took wing from the north,
The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore;
The wild Scandinavian boar issued forth 35
To wanton in carnage and wallow in gore:
O’er countries and kingdoms their fury prevail’d,
No arts could appease them, no arms could repel;
But b
rave Caledonia in vain they assail’d,
As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie tell. 40
Thus bold, independent, unconquer’d, and free,
Her bright course of glory for ever shall run:
For brave Caledonia immortal must be;
I’ll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun:
Rectangle-triangle, the figure we’ll chuse: 45
The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base;
But brave Caledonia’s the hypothenuse;
Then, ergo, she’ll match them, and match them always.
Chronological List of Poems
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255.
Verses to Miss Cruickshank
A very Young Lady
Written on the Blank Leaf of a Book, presented to her by the Author.
BEAUTEOUS Rosebud, young and gay,
Blooming in thy early May,
Never may’st thou, lovely flower,
Chilly shrink in sleety shower!
Never Boreas’ hoary path, 5
Never Eurus’ pois’nous breath,
Never baleful stellar lights,
Taint thee with untimely blights!