Now comes the sax an' twentieth simmer,
I've seen the bud upo' the timmer,
Still persecuted by the limmer

Frae year to year;

But yet, despite the kittle kimmer,1

Do

I, Rob, am here.

ye envy the city Gent,

Behint a kist to lie and sklent,3

Or purse-proud, big wi' cent per cent,

An' muckle wame,*

In some bit Brugh to represent

A Bailie's name?

Or is't the paughty,5 feudal Thane,
Wi' ruffl'd sark an' glancing cane,
Wha thinks himsel nae sheep-shank bane,
But lordly stalks,

While caps and bonnets aff are ta'en,
As by he walks ?

"O Thou wha gies us each guid gift!
Gie me o' wit an' sense a lift,
Then turn me, if Thou please, adrift,
Thro' Scotland wide

Wi' cits nor lairds I wadna shift,

In a' their pride!"

Were this the charter of our state,
"On pain o' hell be rich an' great,"
Damnation then would be our fate,
Beyond remead;

But, thanks to Heav'n! that's no the gate
We learn our creed.

For thus the royal mandate ran,
When first the human race began,
"The social, friendly, honest man,
Whate'er he be,

'Tis he fulfils great Nature's plan,
And none but he !"

O mandate glorious and divine!

The ragged followers of the Nine,
Poor, thoughtless devils! yet may shine,

In glorious light,

While sordid sons of Mammon's line

Are dark as night.

1 Skittish girl.

2 Counter.
'Haughty.

8 Deceive.

+ Belly.

Tho' here they scrape, an' squeeze, an' growl,
Their worthless nievefu' of a soul
May in some future carcase howl,

The forest's fright;

Or in some day-detesting owl

May shun the light.

Then may Lapraik and Burns arise,
To reach their native, kindred skies,
And sing their pleasures, hopes, an' joys,
In some mild sphere,

Still closer knit in friendship's ties

Each passing year!

TO WILLIAM SIMPSON,2

OCHILTREE.

May, 1785.

I GAT your letter, winsome Willie ;
Wi' gratefu' heart I thank you brawlie;
Tho' I maun say't, I wad be silly,

An' unco vain,

Should I believe, my coaxin billie,3

Your flatterin strain.

But I'se believe ye kindly meant it,
I sud be laith to think ye hinted
Ironic satire, sidelins sklented1

On my poor Musie;

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' Gilbertfiel',7

The braes o' fame;

Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel,

A deathless name.

(O Fergusson! thy glorious parts
Ill suited law's dry, musty arts!
My curse upon your whunstane hearts,
Ye Enbrugh Gentry!

The tythe o' what ye waste at cartes
Wad stow'd his pantry!)

1 Handful.

3 Brother.

6 Climb.

2 Schoolmaster of Ochiltree.
5 Be crazed.

Sidelong flung.
7 Allan Ramsay and Hamilton of Gilbertfield.

Yet when a tale comes i' my

head,

Or lasses gie my heart a screed,1
As whiles they're like to be my deed,
(O sad disease!)

I kittle up my rustic reed;

It gies me ease.

Auld Coila, now, may fidge? fu' fain,

She's gotten Poets o' her ain,

Chiels wha their chanters winna hain,3
But tune their lays,

Till echoes a' resound again

Her weel-sung praise.

Nae Poet thought her worth his while,
To set her name in measur'd stile;
She lay like some unkend-of isle,

Beside New Holland,

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,

Ower Scotland rings,

While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an' Doon,
Nae body sings.

Th' Illissus, Tiber, Thames, an' Seine,
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu' line!
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,
Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells,
Her banks an' braes, her dens an' dells,
Whare Glorious Wallace

Aft bure1 the gree, as story tells,

Frae southron billies.

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,5

Rent.

Or glorious dy❜d.

2 Be right glad. 3 Will not spare their bagpipes. • Did bear. 5 Walking in blood over the shoe-tops.

O, sweet are Coila's haughs' an' woods,
When lintwhites' chant amang the buds,
And jinkin3 hares, in amorous whids,

Their loves enjoy,

While thro' the braes the cushat croods
Wi' wailfu' cry!

Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me,
When winds rave thro' the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree

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!
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,
Till by himsel he learn'd to wander,
Adown some trotting burn's meander,
An' no think lang;

O sweet, to stray an' pensive ponder
A heart-felt sang!

The war'ly race may drudge an' drive,
Hog-shouther, jundie,7 stretch, an' strive,-
Let me fair Nature's face descrive,

And I, wi' pleasure,

Shall let the busy, grumbling hive

Bums 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:

May Envy wallop in a tether,

Black fiend, infernal!

While highlandmen hate tolls an' taxes;

While moorlan' herds' like guid, fat braxies ;10
While terra firma, on her axis,

Diurnal turns,

Count on a friend, in faith an' practice,

In Robert Burns.

POSTSCRIPT.

My memory's no worth a preen1;
I had amaist forgotten clean,

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 callans2
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,3
Like you or me.

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 viewing,

An' shortly after she was done,

They gat a new one.

This past 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;

An' muckle din there was about it,
Baith loud an' lang.

Some herds, weel learn'd upo' the beuk,5
Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk;
For 'twas the auld moon turn'd a neuk,
An' out o' sight,

An' backlins7-comin, to the leuk

She grew mair bright.

This was deny'd, it was affirmed;

The herds an' hirsels were alarm'd;
The rev'rend gray-beards rav'd an' storm'd,
That beardless laddies

Should think they better were inform'd

Than their auld daddies.

Frae less to mair it gaed to sticks;

Frae words an' aiths to clours9 an' nicks;

1 Pin.

$ Book.

2 Boys.
6 Maintain.

♦ Shred.

3 Lowland speech. 7 Returning. 8 Flocks. 9 Bumps.