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Robert Louis Stevenson > A Child’s Garden of Verses and Underwoods > XI. Embro Hie Kirk |
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| CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD |
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| Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850–1894). A Child’s Garden of Verses and Underwoods. 1913. |
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XI. Embro Hie Kirk
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| THE LORD HIMSEL’ in former days | |
| Waled out the proper tünes for praise | |
| An’ named the proper kind o’ claes | |
| For folk to preach in: | |
| Preceese and in the chief o’ ways | 5 |
| Important teachin’. | |
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| He ordered a’ things late and air’; | |
| He ordered folk to stand at prayer. | |
| (Although I cannae just mind where | |
| He gave the warnin’.) | 10 |
| An’ pit pomatum on their hair | |
| On Sabbath mornin’. | |
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| The hale o’ life by His commands | |
| Was ordered to a body’s hands; | |
| But see! this corpus juris stands | 15 |
| By a’ forgotten; | |
| An’ God’s religion in a’ lands | |
| Is deid an’ rotten. | |
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| While thus the lave o’ mankind’s lost, | |
| O’ Scotland still God maks His boast— | 20 |
| Puir Scotland, on whase barren coast | |
| A score or twa | |
| Auld wives wi’ mutches an’ a hoast | |
| Still keep His law. | |
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| In Scotland, a wheen canty, plain, | 25 |
| Douce, kintry-leevin’ folk retain | |
| The Truth—or did so aince—alane | |
| Of a’ men leevin’; | |
| An’ noo just twa o’ them remain— | |
| Just Begg an’ Niven. | 30 |
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| For noo, unfaithfü to the Lord | |
| Auld Scotland joins the rebel horde; | |
| Her human hymn-books on the board | |
| She noo displays: | |
| An’ Embro Hie Kirk’s been restored | 35 |
| In popish ways. | |
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| O punctum temporis for action | |
| To a’ o’ the reformin’ faction, | |
| If yet, by ony act or paction, | |
| Thocht, word, or sermon, | 40 |
| This dark an’ damnable transaction | |
| Micht yet determine! | |
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| For see—as Doctor Begg explains— | |
| Hoo easy ’t’s düne! a pickle weans, | |
| Wha in the Hie Street gaither stanes | 45 |
| By his instruction, | |
| The uncovenantit, pentit panes | |
| Ding to destruction. | |
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| Up, Niven, or ower late—an’ dash | |
| Laigh in the glaur that carnal hash; | 50 |
| Let spires and pews wi’ gran’ stramash | |
| Thegether fa’; | |
| The rumlin’ kist o’ whustles smash | |
| In pieces sma’. | |
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| Noo choose ye out a waie hammer; | 55 |
| About the knottit buttress clam’er; | |
| Alang the steep roof stoyt an’ stammer, | |
| A gate mis-chancy; | |
| On the aul’ spire, the bells’ hie cha’mer, | |
| Dance your bit dancie. | 60 |
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| Ding, devel, dunt, destroy, an’ ruin, | |
| Wi’ carnal stanes the square bestrewin’, | |
| Till your loud chaps frae Kyle to Fruin, | |
| Frae Hell to Heeven, | |
| Tell the guid wark that baith are doin’— | 65 |
| Baith Begg an’ Niven. | |
