The Complete Works - Robert Burns

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Bawtie’s dead;

      The tulzie’s sair ’tween Pitt and Fox,

      And our guid wife’s wee birdie cocks;

      The tane is game, a bluidie devil,

      But to the hen-birds unco civil:

      The tither’s something dour o’ treadin’,

      But better stuff ne’er claw’d a midden—

      Ye ministers, come mount the pu’pit,

      An’ cry till ye be hearse an’ roupet,

      For Eighty-eight he wish’d you weel,

      An’ gied you a’ baith gear an’ meal;

      E’en mony a plack, and mony a peck,

      Ye ken yoursels, for little feck!

      Ye bonnie lasses, dight your e’en,

      For some o’ you ha’e tint a frien’;

      In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was ta’en,

      What ye’ll ne’er ha’e to gie again.

      Observe the very nowt an’ sheep,

      How dowf and dowie now they creep;

      Nay, even the yirth itsel’ does cry,

      For Embro’ wells are grutten dry.

      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 has got thy daddy’s chair,

      Nae hand-cuff’d, mizl’d, hap-shackl’d Regent,

      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 ye can.

      January 1, 1789.

      XCVIII. ADDRESS TO THE TOOTHACHE

      [“I had intended,” says Burns to Creech, 30th May, 1789, “to have troubled you with a long letter, but at present the delightful sensation of an omnipotent toothache so engrosses all my inner man, as to put it out of my power even to write nonsense.” The poetic Address to the Toothache seems to belong to this period.]

      My curse upon thy venom’d stang,

      That shoots my tortur’d gums alang;

      And thro’ my lugs gies mony a twang,

      Wi’ gnawing vengeance;

      Tearing my nerves wi’ bitter pang,

      Like racking engines!

      When fevers burn, or ague freezes,

      Rheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes;

      Our neighbours’ sympathy may ease us,

      Wi’ pitying moan;

      But thee—thou hell o’ a’ diseases,

      Ay mocks our groan!

      Adown my beard the slavers trickle!

      I kick the wee stools o’er the mickle,

      As round the fire the giglets keckle,

      To see me loup;

      While, raving mad, I wish a heckle

      Were in their doup.

      O’ a’ the num’rous human dools,

      Ill har’sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools,

      Or worthy friends rak’d i’ the mools,

      Sad sight to see!

      The tricks o’ knaves, or fash o’ fools,

      Thou bears’t the gree.

      Where’er that place be priests ca’ hell,

      Whence a’ the tones o’ mis’ry yell,

      And ranked plagues their numbers tell,

      In dreadfu’ raw,

      Thou, Toothache, surely bear’st the bell

      Amang them a’!

      O thou grim mischief-making chiel,

      That gars the notes of discord squeel,

      ’Till daft mankind aft dance a reel

      In gore a shoe-thick!—

      Gie’ a’ the faes o’ Scotland’s weal

      A towmond’s Toothache.

      XCIX. ODE SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. OSWALD, OF AUCHENCRUIVE

      [The origin of this harsh effusion shows under what feelings Burns sometimes wrote. He was, he says, on his way to Ayrshire, one stormy day in January, and had made himself comfortable, in spite of the snow-drift, over a smoking bowl, at an inn at the Sanquhar, when in wheeled the whole funeral pageantry of Mrs. Oswald. He was obliged to mount his horse and ride for quarters to New Cumnock, where, over a good fire, he penned, in his very ungallant indignation, the Ode to the lady’s memory. He lived to think better of the name.]

      Dweller in yon dungeon dark,

      Hangman of creation, mark!

      Who in widow-weeds appears,

      Laden with unhonoured years,

      Noosing with care a bursting purse,

      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,

      Pity’s flood there never rose.

      See these hands, ne’er stretch’d to save,

      Hands that took—but never gave.

      Keeper of Mammon’s iron chest,

      Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest

      She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!

      Antistrophe.

      Plunderer of armies, lift thine eyes,

      (Awhile forbear, ye tort’ring fiends;)

      Seest thou whose step, unwilling hither bends?

      No fallen angel, hurl’d from upper skies;

      ’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 glitt’ring pounds a-year?

      In other worlds can Mammon fail,

      Omnipotent as he is here?

      O, bitter mock’ry of the pompous bier,

      While down the wretched vital part is driv’n!

      The cave-lodg’d beggar, with a conscience clear,

      Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heav’n.

      C. FRAGMENT INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HON. C.J. FOX

      [It was late in life before Burns began to think very highly of Fox: he had hitherto spoken of him rather as a rattler of dice, and a frequenter of soft company, than as a statesman. As his hopes from the Tories vanished, he began to think of the Whigs: the first did nothing, and the latter held out hopes; and as hope, he said was the cordial of the human heart, he continued to hope on.]

      How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite;

      How virtue and vice blend their black and their white;

      How

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