The Complete Works - Robert Burns

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helpless lambs, I trust them wi’ him.

      “O, bid him save their harmless lives

      Frae dogs, and tods, an’ butchers’ knives!

      But gie them guid cow-milk their fill,

      Till they be fit to fend themsel;

      An’ tent them duly, e’en an’ morn,

      Wi’ teats o’ hay, an’ ripps o’ corn.

      “An’ may they never learn the gaets

      Of ither vile, wanrestfu’ pets!

      To sink thro’ slaps, an’ reave an’ steal

      At stacks o’ pease, or stocks o’ kail.

      So may they, like their great forbears,

      For monie a year come thro’ the sheers;

      So wives will gie them bits o’ bread,

      An’ bairns greet for them when they’re dead.

      “My poor toop-lamb, my son an’ heir,

      O, bid him breed him up wi’ care;

      An’ if he live to be a beast,

      To pit some havins in his breast!

      An’ warn him what I winna name,

      To stay content wi’ yowes at hame

      An’ no to rin an’ wear his cloots,

      Like ither menseless, graceless brutes.

      “An’ niest my yowie, silly thing,

      Gude keep thee frae a tether string!

      O, may thou ne’er forgather up

      Wi’ ony blastit, moorland toop,

      But ay keep mind to moop an’ mell

      Wi’ sheep o’ credit like thysel!

      “And now, my bairns, wi’ my last breath

      I lea’e my blessin wi’ you baith:

      An’ when you think upo’ your mither,

      Mind to be kind to ane anither.

      “Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail

      To tell my master a’ my tale;

      An’ bid him burn this cursed tether,

      An’, for thy pains, thou’se get my blather.”

      This said, poor Mailie turn’d her head,

      And clos’d her een amang the dead.

      III. POOR MAILIE’S ELEGY

      [Burns, when he calls on the bards of Ayr and Doon to join in the lament for Mailie, intimates that he regards himself as a poet. Hogg calls it a very elegant morsel: but says that it resembles too closely “The Ewie and the Crooked Horn,” to be admired as original: the shepherd might have remembered that they both resemble Sempill’s “Life and death of the Piper of Kilbarchan.”]

      Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,

      Wi’ saut tears trickling down your nose;

      Our bardie’s fate is at a close,

      Past a’ remead;

      The last sad cape-stane of his woes;

      Poor Mailie’s dead.

      It’s no the loss o’ warl’s gear,

      That could sae bitter draw the tear,

      Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear

      The mourning weed;

      He’s lost a friend and neebor dear,

      In Mailie dead.

      Thro’ a’ the toun she trotted by him;

      A long half-mile she could descry him;

      Wi’ kindly bleat, when she did spy him,

      She run wi’ speed:

      A friend mair faithfu’ ne’er cam nigh him,

      Than Mailie dead.

      I wat she was a sheep o’ sense,

      An’ could behave hersel wi’ mense:

      I’ll say’t, she never brak a fence,

      Thro’ thievish greed.

      Our bardie, tamely, keeps the spence

      Sin’ Mailie’s dead.

      Or, if he wonders up the howe,

      Her living image in her yowe

      Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe,

      For bits o’ bread;

      An’ down the briny pearls rowe

      For Mailie dead.

      She was nae get o’ moorland tips[3],

      Wi’ tawted ket, an hairy hips;

      For her forbears were brought in ships

      Frae yont the Tweed:

      A bonnier fleesh ne’er cross’d the clips

      Than Mailie dead.

      Wae worth the man wha first did shape

      That vile, wanchancie thing—a rape!

      It maks guid fellows girn an’ gape,

      Wi’ chokin dread;

      An’ Robin’s bonnet wave wi’ crape,

      For Mailie dead.

      O, a’ ye bards on bonnie Doon!

      An’ wha on Ayr your chanters tune!

      Come, join the melancholious croon

      O’ Robin’s reed!

      His heart will never get aboon!

      His Mailie’s dead!

      IV. FIRST EPISTLE TO DAVIE, A BROTHER POET

      [In the summer of 1781, Burns, while at work in the garden, repeated this Epistle to his brother Gilbert, who was much pleased with the performance, which he considered equal if not superior to some of Allan Ramsay’s Epistles, and said if it were printed he had no doubt that it would be well received by people of taste.]

      –January, [1784.]

      I.

      While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,

      And bar the doors wi’ driving snaw,

      And hing us owre the ingle,

      I set me down to pass the time,

      And spin a verse or twa o’ rhyme,

      In hamely westlin jingle.

      While frosty winds blaw in the drift,

      Ben to the chimla lug,

      I grudge a wee the great folks’ gift,

      That live sae bien an’ snug:

      I tent less and want less

      Their roomy fire-side;

      But hanker and canker

      To see their cursed pride.

      II.

      It’s hardly in a body’s power

      To keep, at times, frae being sour,

      To see how things are shar’d;

      How best o’ chiels are whiles in want.

      While coofs on countless thousands rant,

      And ken na how to wair’t;

      But Davie, lad, ne’er fash your head,

      Tho’ we hae little gear,

      We’re fit to win our daily bread,

      As lang’s we’re hale and fier:

      “Muir

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<p>3</p>

VARIATION.

‘She was nae get o’ runted rams,

Wi’ woo’ like goats an’ legs like trams;

She was the flower o’ Farlie lambs,

A famous breed!

Now Robin, greetin, chews the hams

O’ Mailie dead.’