The Complete Works - Robert Burns

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here his body lies fu’ low—

      For saul he ne’er had ony.

      VI. ON JOHN DOVE, INNKEEPER, MAUCHLINE.

      [John Dove kept the Whitefoord Arms in Mauchline: his religion is made to consist of a comparative appreciation of the liquors he kept.]

      Here lies Johnny Pidgeon;

      What was his religion?

      Wha e’er desires to ken,

      To some other warl’

      Maun follow the carl,

      For here Johnny Pidgeon had nane!

      Strong ale was ablution—

      Small beer, persecution,

      A dram was memento mori;

      But a full flowing bowl

      Was the saving his soul,

      And port was celestial glory.

      VII. ON A WAG IN MAUCHLINE

      [This laborious and useful wag was the “Dear Smith, thou sleest pawkie thief,” of one of the poet’s finest epistles: he died in the West Indies.]

      Lament him, Mauchline husbands a’,

      He aften did assist ye;

      For had ye staid whole weeks awa,

      Your wives they ne’er had missed ye.

      Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye press

      To school in bands thegither,

      O tread ye lightly on his grass,—

      Perhaps he was your father.

      VIII. ON A CELEBRATED RULING ELDER

      [Souter Hood obtained the distinction of this Epigram by his impertinent inquiries into what he called the moral delinquencies of Burns.]

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      NOTES

      1

      Dr. Young.

      2

      A neibor herd-callan.

      3

      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.’

      4

      Ramsay.

      5

      A peculiar sort of whiskey.

      6

      Buchan’s Domestic Medicine.

      7

      The grave-digger.

      8

      The fore-horse on the left-hand in the plough.

      9

      The hindmost on the left-hand in the plough.

      10

      Kilmarnock.

      11

      The hindmost horse on the right-hand in the plough.

      12

      A street so called, which faces the tent in Mauchline.

      13

      Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

      14

      Alluding to a scoffing ballad which was made on the admission of the late reverend and worthy Mr. Lindsay to the Laigh Kirk.

      15

      Genesis, ix. 22.

      16

      Numbers, xxv. 8.

      17

      Exodus, iv. 25.

      18

      “New Light” is a cant phrase in the West of Scotland, for those religions opinions which Dr. Taylor of Norwich has defended.

      19

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

      20

      The Wallaces.

      21

      Sir William Wallace.

      22

      Adam Wallace, of Richardton, cousin to the immortal preserver of Scottish independence.

      23

      Wallace, Laird of Craigie, who was second in command under Douglas, Earl of Ormond, at the famous battle on the banks of Sark, fought anno 1448. That glorious victory was principally owing to the judicious conduct and intrepid valour of the gallant laird of Craigie, who died of his wounds after the action.

      24

      Coilus, king of the Picts, from whom the district of Kyle is said to take its name, lies buried, as tradition says, near the family seat of the Montgomeries of Coilsfield, where his burial-place is still shown.

      25

      Barskimming, the seat of the late Lord Justice-Clerk (Sir Thomas Miller of Glenlee, afterwards President of the Court of Session.)

      26

      Catrine, the seat of Professor Dugald Steward.

      27

      Colonel Fullarton.

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