With the ready trick and fable,
Round we wander all the day;
And at night, in barn or stable,
Hug our doxies on the hay.
A fig, etc.
Does the train-attended carriage
Through the country lighter rove?
Does the sober bed of marriage
Witness brighter scenes of love?
A fig, etc.
Life is all a variorum,
We regard not how it goes;
Let them cant about decorum
Who have characters to lose.
A fig, etc.
Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets!
Here's to all the wandering train!
Here's our ragged brats and callets!
One and all cry out - Amen!
A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.
"Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society!
I owe thee much!"- BLAIR.
DEAR Smith, the slee'est, paukie thief
That e'er attempted stealth or rief,
Ye surely hae some warlock-breef
Owre human hearts;
For ne'er a bosom yet was prief
Against your arts.
For me, I swear by sun and moon,
And every star that blinks aboon,
Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoon
Just gaun to see you;
ither pair that's done,
Mair ta'en I'm wi' you.
That auld capricious carlin, Nature,
To mak amends for scrimpet stature,
She's turned you aff, a human creature
On her first plan;
And in her freaks, on every feature
She's wrote, the Man.
Just now I've ta'en the fit o' rhyme,
My barmie noddle's working prime,
My fancy yerkit up sublime
Wi' hasty summon :
Hae ye a leisure moment's time,
To hear what's comin'?
Some rhyme a neighbour's name to lash ;
Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu' cash;
Some rhyme to court the country clash,
And raise a din ;
For me, an aim I never fash
I rhyme for fun.
The star that rules my luckless lot,
Has fated me the russet coat,
And d-d my fortune to the groat;
But in requit,
Has blest me wi' a random shot
O' country wit.
This while my notion 's ta'en a sklent,
To try my fate in guid black prent ;
But still the mair I'm that way bent,
Something cries "Hoolie!
I red you, honest man, tak tent!
Ye'll shaw your folly.
"There's ither poets much your betters,
Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters,
Hae thought they had insured their debtors
A' future ages;
Now moths deform, in shapeless tatters,
Their unknown pages."
Then farewell hopes o' laurel-boughs,
To garland my poetic brows!
Henceforth I'll rove where busy ploughs
Are whistling thrang,
And teach the lanely heights and howes
My rustic sang.
I'll wander on, with tentless heed
How never-halting moments speed,
Till fate shall snap the brittle thread;
Then, all unknown,
I'll lay me with the inglorious dead,
Forgot and gone!
But why o' death begin a tale?
Just now we're living sound and hale :
Then top and maintop crowd the sail,
Heave Care o'er side!
And large before Enjoyment's gale,
Let's tak the tide.
This life, sae far's I understand,
Is a' enchanted fairy-land,
Where Pleasure is the magic wand,
That, wielded right,
Maks hours like minutes, hand in hand,
Dance by fu' light.
The magic wand then let us wield ;
For, ance that five-and-forty 's speel'd,
See, crazy, weary, joyless eild,
Wi' wrinkled face,
Comes hostin', hirplin' owre the field,
Wi' creepin' pace.
When ance life's day draws near the gloamin', Then fareweel vacant careless roamin';
And fareweel cheerfu' tankards foamin',
And fareweel dear, deluding woman,
The joy of joys!
Oh, Life! how pleasant in thy morning,
Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning !
Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning,
We frisk away,
Like school-boys, at the expected warning,
To joy and play.
We wander there, we wander here,
We eye the rose upon the brier,
Unmindful that the thorn is near,
Among the leaves :
puny wound appear, Short while it grieves.
Some, lucky, find a flowery spot,
For which they never toiled or swat ;.
They drink the sweet and eat the fat,
But care or pain;
And, haply, eye the barren hut
With steady aim some fortune chase;
Keen hope does every sinew brace;
Through fair, through foul, they urge the race,
And seize the prey:
Then cannie, in some cozie place,
They close the day.
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