| |
| FOR lords or kings I dinna mourn, | |
| E’en let them die-for that they’re born: | |
| But oh! prodigious to reflec’! | |
| A Towmont, sirs, is gane to wreck! | |
| O Eighty-eight, in thy sma’ space, | 5 |
| What dire events hae taken place! | |
| Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us! | |
| In what a pickle thou has left us! | |
| |
| The Spanish empire’s tint a head, | |
| And my auld teethless, Bawtie’s dead: | 10 |
| The tulyie’s teugh ’tween Pitt and Fox, | |
| And ’tween our Maggie’s twa wee cocks; | |
| The tane is game, a bluidy devil, | |
| But to the hen-birds unco civil; | |
| The tither’s something dour o’ treadin, | 15 |
| But better stuff ne’er claw’d a middin. | |
| |
| Ye ministers, come mount the poupit, | |
| An’ cry till ye be hearse an’ roupit, | |
| For Eighty-eight, he wished you weel, | |
| An’ gied ye a’ baith gear an’ meal; | 20 |
| E’en monc a plack, and mony a peck, | |
| Ye ken yoursels, for little feck! | |
| |
| Ye bonie lasses, dight your e’en, | |
| For some o’ you hae tint a frien’; | |
| In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was taen, | 25 |
| What ye’ll ne’er hae to gie again. | |
| Observe the very nowt an’ sheep, | |
| How dowff an’ daviely they creep; | |
| Nay, even the yirth itsel’ does cry, | |
| For E’nburgh wells are grutten dry. | 30 |
| |
| O Eighty-nine, thou’s but a bairn, | |
| An’ no owre auld, I hope, to learn! | |
| Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care, | |
| Thou now hast got thy Daddy’s chair; | |
| Nae handcuff’d, mizl’d, hap-shackl’d Regent, | 35 |
| But, like himsel, a full free agent, | |
| Be sure ye follow out the plan | |
| Nae waur than he did, honest man! | |
As muckle better as you can.
January, 1, 1789. | |
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