The Complete Works - Robert Burns

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I should wander terra e’er,

      In all her climes,

      Grant me but this, I ask no more,

      Ay rowth o’ rhymes.

      “Gie dreeping roasts to countra lairds,

      Till icicles hing frae their beards;

      Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guards,

      And maids of honour!

      And yill an’ whisky gie to cairds,

      Until they sconner.

      “A title, Dempster merits it;

      A garter gie to Willie Pitt;

      Gie wealth to some be-ledger’d cit,

      In cent. per cent.

      But give me real, sterling wit,

      And I’m content.

      “While ye are pleas’d to keep me hale,

      I’ll sit down o’er my scanty meal,

      Be’t water-brose, or muslin-kail,

      Wi’ cheerfu’ face,

      As lang’s the muses dinna fail

      To say the grace.”

      An anxious e’e I never throws

      Behint my lug, or by my nose;

      I jouk beneath misfortune’s blows

      As weel’s I may;

      Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose,

      I rhyme away.

      O ye douce folk, that live by rule,

      Grave, tideless-blooded, calm and cool,

      Compar’d wi’ you—O fool! fool! fool!

      How much unlike!

      Your hearts are just a standing pool,

      Your lives a dyke!

      Nae hair-brain’d, sentimental traces,

      In your unletter’d nameless faces!

      In arioso trills and graces

      Ye never stray,

      But gravissimo, solemn basses

      Ye hum away.

      Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye’re wise;

      Nae ferly tho’ ye do despise

      The hairum-scarum, ram-stam boys,

      The rattling squad:

      I see you upward cast your eyes—

      Ye ken the road—

      Whilst I—but I shall haud me there—

      Wi’ you I’ll scarce gang ony where—

      Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair,

      But quat my sang,

      Content wi’ you to mak a pair,

      Whare’er I gang.

      XXIV. THE VISION. DUAN FIRST.[19]

      [The Vision and the Briggs of Ayr, are said by Jeffrey to be “the only pieces by Burns which can be classed under the head of pure fiction:” but Tam O’ Shanter and twenty other of his compositions have an equal right to be classed with works of fiction. The edition of this poem published at Kilmarnock, differs in some particulars from the edition which followed in Edinburgh. The maiden whose foot was so handsome as to match that of Coila, was a Bess at first, but old affection triumphed, and Jean, for whom the honour was from the first designed, regained her place. The robe of Coila, too, was expanded, so far indeed that she got more cloth than she could well carry.]

      The sun had clos’d the winter day,

      The curlers quat their roaring play,

      An’ hunger’d maukin ta’en her way

      To kail-yards green,

      While faithless snaws ilk step betray

      Whare she has been.

      The thresher’s weary flingin’-tree

      The lee-lang day had tired me;

      And when the day had closed his e’e

      Far i’ the west,

      Ben i’ the spence, right pensivelie,

      I gaed to rest.

      There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek,

      I sat and ey’d the spewing reek,

      That fill’d, wi’ hoast-provoking smeek,

      The auld clay biggin’;

      An’ heard the restless rattons squeak

      About the riggin’.

      All in this mottie, misty clime,

      I backward mused on wastet time,

      How I had spent my youthfu’ prime,

      An’ done nae thing,

      But stringin’ blethers up in rhyme,

      For fools to sing.

      Had I to guid advice but harkit,

      I might, by this hae led a market,

      Or strutted in a bank an’ clarkit

      My cash-account:

      While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit,

      Is a’ th’ amount.

      I started, mutt’ring, blockhead! coof!

      And heav’d on high my waukit loof,

      To swear by a’ yon starry roof,

      Or some rash aith,

      That I, henceforth, would be rhyme-proof

      Till my last breath—

      When, click! the string the snick did draw:

      And, jee! the door gaed to the wa’;

      An’ by my ingle-lowe I saw,

      Now bleezin’ bright,

      A tight outlandish hizzie, braw

      Come full in sight.

      Ye need na doubt, I held my wisht;

      The infant aith, half-form’d, was crusht;

      I glowr’d as eerie’s I’d been dusht

      In some wild glen;

      When sweet, like modest worth, she blusht,

      And stepped ben.

      Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs

      Were twisted, gracefu’, round her brows,

      I took her for some Scottish Muse,

      By that same token;

      An’ come to stop those reckless vows,

      Wou’d soon be broken.

      A “hair-brain’d, sentimental trace”

      Was strongly marked in her face;

      A wildly-witty, rustic grace

      Shone full upon her:

      Her eye, ev’n turn’d on empty space,

      Beam’d keen with honour.

      Down flow’d her robe, a tartan sheen,

      ’Till half a leg was scrimply seen:

      And such a leg! my bonnie Jean

      Could only peer it;

      Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean,

      Nane else came near it.

      Her mantle large, of greenish hue,

      My gazing wonder chiefly drew;

      Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw

      A lustre grand;

      And

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<p>19</p>

Duan, a term of Ossian’s for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See his “Cath-Loda,” vol. ii. of Macpherson’s translation.