But, hark! the tent has changed its voice!
There's peace and rest nae langer :

For a' the real judges rise,

They canna sit for anger.

Smith* opens out his cauld harangues
On practice and on morals;

And aff the godly pour in thrangs,
To gie the jars and barrels

A lift that day.

What signifies his barren shine

Of moral powers and reason?
His English style, and gesture fine,
Are a' clean out o' season.
Like Socrates or Antonine,

Or some auld pagan heathen,
The moral man he does define,
But ne'er a word o' faith in

That's right that day.

In guid time comes an antidote
Against sic poison'd nostrum;
For Peebles, frae the Water-fit,†
Ascends the holy rostrum :
See, up he's got the Word o' God,
And meek and mim2 has view'd it,
While Common Sense‡ has ta'en the road,
And's aff and up the Cowgate, §

1 Unearthly.

Fast, fast, that day.

2 Primly.

* Mr. (afterwards Dr.) George Smith, minister of Galston. Burns intended a compliment here on his rational mode of preaching, but the rev. gentleman did not appreciate the effort.

The Rev. Mr. (afterwards Dr.) William Peebles, minister of Newton-uponAyr, sometimes named, from its situation, the Water-fit.

Dr. Mackenzie, then of Mauchline, afterwards of Irvine, had recently conducted some village controversy under the title of "Common Sense.' Some local commentators are of opinion that he, and not the personified abstraction, is meant.

is meant. Probably both are included.

§ A street so called which faces the tent in Mauchline.-B.

Wee Miller neist the guard relieves,
And orthodoxy raibles,1

Though in his heart he weel believes
And thinks it auld wives' fables :
But, faith! the birkie wants a manse,
So, cannily he hums them;
Although his carnal wit and sense
Like hafflin-ways2 o'ercomes him
At times that day.

1 Rattles.

Now but and ben the change-house fills
Wi' yill-caup commentators:

Here's crying out for bakes and gills,
And there the pint-stoup clatters;

While thick and thrang, and loud and lang,
Wi' logic and wi' Scripture,

They raise a din, that, in the end,

Is like to breed a rupture

O' wrath that day.

Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair
Than either school or college:
It kindles wit, it waukens lair,
It pangs us fou o' knowledge.
Be't whisky gill, or penny wheep,
Or ony stronger potion,

It never fails, on drinking deep,
To kittle up our notion

By night or day.

2 Half-way.

*The Rev. Mr. Miller, afterwards minister of Kilmaurs. He was of remarkably low stature, but enormous girth.

†The Rev. John Russell, at this time minister of the chapel of ease, Kilmarnock, afterwards minister of Stirling-one of the heroes of "The Twa Herds.' "He was," says a correspondent of Cunningham's, "the most tremendous man I ever saw: Black Hugh Macpherson was a beauty in comparison. His voice was like thunder, and his sentiments were such as must have shocked any class of hearers in the least more refined than those whom he usually addressed."

1 Lumps.

His piercing words, like Highland swords,
Divide the joints and marrow;

His talk o' hell, whare devils dwell;
Our vera sauls does harrow*

Wi' fright that day.

A vast, unbottom'd, boundless pit,
Fill'd fu' o' lowin' brunstane,
Whase ragin' flame, and scorchin' heat,
Wad melt the hardest whunstane!
The half-asleep start up wi' fear,
And think they hear it roarin',
When presently it does appear
'Twas but some neibor snorin'
Asleep that day.

'Twad be owre lang a tale to tell
How mony stories past,

And how they crowded to the yill
When they were a' dismist :

How drink gaed round, in cogs and caups,
Among the forms and benches:

And cheese and bread, frae women's laps,
Was dealt about in lunches,

And dauds1 that day.

In comes a gaucie, gash2 guidwife,

And sits down by the fire,

Syne draws her kebbuck and her knife;

The lasses they are shyer.

The auld guidmen, about the grace,

Frae side to side they bother,

Till some ane by his bonnet lays,

And gies them't like a tether,
Fu' lang that day.

Waesucks! for him that gets nae lass,
Or lasses that hae naething!
Sma' need has he to say a grace,
Or melvie his braw claithing!
O wives, be mindfu' ance yersel
How bonny lads ye wanted,
And dinna, for a kebbuck-heel,"
Let lasses be affronted

On sic a day!

Now Clinkumbell, wi' rattlin' tow,

Begins to jow and croon ;7

Some swagger hame, the best they dow,8
Some wait the afternoon.

2 Fat and homely.

3 Cheese.

4 Alas.

5 Soil.

6 Cheese-crust.

* Shakespeare's "Hamlet."-B.

7 Sing and groan.

8 Can.

How mony hearts this day converts

O' sinners and o' lasses!

Their hearts o' stane, gin night, are gane,
As saft as ony flesh is.

There's some are fou o' love divine;

There's some are fou o' brandy;

And mony jobs that day begin

May end in houghmagandy

*

Some ither day.

VERSES ON A SCOTCH BARD,

GONE TO THE WEST INDIES.

THE following lines were written when the poet meditated emigrating to
Jamaica.

A' YE wha live by sowps o' drink,
A' ye wha live by crambo-clink,"
A' ye wha live and never think,

Come, mourn wi' me!

The bonny lasses weel may wiss him,
And in their dear petitions place him:
The widows, wives, and a' may bless him,
Wi' tearfu' ee;

For weel I wat they'll sairly miss him
That's owre the sea!

O Fortune, they hae room to grumble!
Hadst thou ta'en aff some drowsy bummle

1 Breaches in fences. 2 Lads.

4 "Our friend has eluded
us."

5 Frolic.
6 Bungler

3 Versifying.

* May end in copulation.