| |
| 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 | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| The braes o’ fame; | |
| Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel, | |
| A deathless name. | |
| |
| (O Fergusson! thy glorious parts | |
| Ill suited law’s dry, musty arts! | 20 |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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. | 30 |
| |
| 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 | 35 |
| 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, | 40 |
| 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, | 45 |
| Owre Scotland rings; | |
| While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an’ Doon | |
| Naebody sings. | |
| |
| Th’ Illissus, Tiber, Thames, an’ Seine, | |
| Glide sweet in monie a tunefu’ line: | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| 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. | 60 |
| |
| 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, | 65 |
| 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; | 70 |
| 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 | 75 |
| 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! | 80 |
| 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, | 85 |
| 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! | 90 |
| |
| 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 | 95 |
| 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: | 100 |
| 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, | 105 |
| Diurnal turns; | |
| Count on a friend, in faith an’ practice, | |
| In Robert Burns. | |
| |
POSTCRIPT
MY memory’s no worth a preen; | |
| I had amaist forgotten clean, | 110 |
| 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 | 115 |
| 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. | 120 |
| |
| 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 | 125 |
| 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; | 130 |
| 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 | 135 |
| 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 | 140 |
| 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; | 145 |
| 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. | 150 |
| |
| 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, | 155 |
| 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; | 160 |
| 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 | 165 |
| 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 | 170 |
| 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; | 175 |
| 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! | 180 |
| |
| 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 | 185 |
| Than mind sic brulyie. | |
| |
