| |
| DEAR SMITH, the slee’st, pawkie thief, | |
| That e’er attempted stealth or rief! | |
| Ye surely hae some warlock-brief | |
| Owre human hearts; | |
| For ne’er a bosom yet was prief | 5 |
| Against your arts. | |
| |
| For me, I swear by sun an’ moon, | |
| An’ ev’ry star that blinks aboon, | |
| Ye’ve cost me twenty pair o’ shoon, | |
| Just gaun to see you; | 10 |
| An’ ev’ry ither pair that’s done, | |
| Mair taen I’m wi’ you. | |
| |
| That auld, capricious carlin, Nature, | |
| To mak amends for scrimpit stature, | |
| She’s turn’d you off, a human creature | 15 |
| On her first plan, | |
| And in her freaks, on ev’ry feature | |
| She’s wrote the Man. | |
| |
| Just now I’ve ta’en the fit o’ rhyme, | |
| My barmie noddle’s working prime. | 20 |
| My fancy yerkit up sublime, | |
| Wi’ hasty summon; | |
| Hae ye a leisure-moment’s time | |
| To hear what’s comin? | |
| |
| Some rhyme a neibor’s name to lash; | 25 |
| Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu’ cash; | |
| Some rhyme to court the countra clash, | |
| An’ raise a din; | |
| For me, an aim I never fash; | |
| I rhyme for fun. | 30 |
| |
| The star that rules my luckless lot, | |
| Has fated me the russet coat, | |
| An’ damn’d my fortune to the groat; | |
| But, in requit, | |
| Has blest me with a random-shot | 35 |
| O’countra wit. | |
| |
| This while my notion’s taen a sklent, | |
| To try my fate in guid, black prent; | |
| But still the mair I’m that way bent, | |
| Something cries “Hooklie!” | 40 |
| 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 ensur’d their debtors, | 45 |
| A’ future ages; | |
| Now moths deform, in shapeless tatters, | |
| Their unknown pages.” | |
| |
| Then farewell hopes of laurel-boughs, | |
| To garland my poetic brows! | 50 |
| Henceforth I’ll rove where busy ploughs | |
| Are whistlin’ thrang, | |
| An’ teach the lanely heights an’ howes | |
| My rustic sang. | |
| |
| I’ll wander on, wi’ tentless heed | 55 |
| How never-halting moments speed, | |
| Till fate shall snap the brittle thread; | |
| Then, all unknown, | |
| I’ll lay me with th’ inglorious dead | |
| Forgot and gone! | 60 |
| |
| But why o’ death being 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, | 65 |
| 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, | 70 |
| Maks hours like minutes, hand in hand, | |
| Dance by fu’ light. | |
| |
| The magic-wand then let us wield; | |
| For ance that five-an’-forty’s speel’d, | |
| See, crazy, weary, joyless eild, | 75 |
| Wi’ wrinkl’d face, | |
| Comes hostin, hirplin owre the field, | |
| We’ creepin pace. | |
| |
| When ance life’s day draws near the gloamin, | |
| Then fareweel vacant, careless roamin; | 80 |
| An’ fareweel cheerfu’ tankards foamin, | |
| An’ social noise: | |
| An’ fareweel dear, deluding woman, | |
| The Joy of joys! | |
| |
| O Life! how pleasant, in thy morning, | 85 |
| Young Fancy’s rays the hills adorning! | |
| Cold-pausing Caution’s lesson scorning, | |
| We frisk away, | |
| Like school-boys, at th’ expected warning, | |
| To joy an’ play. | 90 |
| |
| We wander there, we wander here, | |
| We eye the rose upon the brier, | |
| Unmindful that the thorn is near, | |
| Among the leaves; | |
| And tho’ the puny wound appear, | 95 |
| Short while it grieves. | |
| |
| Some, lucky, find a flow’ry spot, | |
| For which they never toil’d nor swat; | |
| They drink the sweet and eat the fat, | |
| But care or pain; | 100 |
| And haply eye the barren hut | |
| With high disdain. | |
| |
| With steady aim, some Fortune chase; | |
| Keen hope does ev’ry sinew brace; | |
| Thro’ fair, thro’ foul, they urge the race, | 105 |
| An’ seize the prey: | |
| Then cannie, in some cozie place, | |
| They close the day. | |
| |
| And others, like your humble servan’, | |
| Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin, | 110 |
| To right or left eternal swervin, | |
| They zig-zag on; | |
| Till, curst with age, obscure an’ starvin, | |
| They aften groan. | |
| |
| Alas! what bitter toil an’ straining— | 115 |
| But truce with peevish, poor complaining! | |
| Is fortune’s fickle Luna waning? | |
| E’n let her gang! | |
| Beneath what light she has remaining, | |
| Let’s sing our sang. | 120 |
| |
| My pen I here fling to the door, | |
| And kneel, ye Pow’rs! and warm implore, | |
| “Tho’ I should wander Terra o’er, | |
| In all her climes, | |
| Grant me but this, I ask no more, | 125 |
| Aye rowth o’ rhymes. | |
| |
| “Gie dreepin roasts to countra lairds, | |
| Till icicles hing frae their beards; | |
| Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guards, | |
| And maids of honour; | 130 |
| An’ yill an’ whisky gie to cairds, | |
| Until they sconner. | |
| |
| “A title, Dempster 1 merits it; | |
| A garter gie to Willie Pitt; | |
| Gie wealth to some be-ledger’d cit, | 135 |
| In cent. per cent.; | |
| But give me real, sterling wit, | |
| And I’m content. | |
| |
| “While ye are pleas’d to keep me hale, | |
| I’ll sit down o’er my scanty meal, | 140 |
| Be’t water-brose or muslin-kail, | |
| Wi’ cheerfu’ face, | |
| As lang’s the Muses dinna fail | |
| To say the grace.” | |
| |
| An anxious e’e I never throws | 145 |
| Behint my lug, or by my nose; | |
| I jouk beneath Misfortune’s blows | |
| As weel’s I may; | |
| Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose, | |
| I rhyme away. | 150 |
| |
| O ye douce folk that live by rule, | |
| Grave, tideless-blooded, calm an’cool, | |
| Compar’d wi’ you—O fool! fool! fool! | |
| How much unlike! | |
| Your hearts are just a standing pool, | 155 |
| Your lives, a dyke! | |
| |
| Nae hair-brain’d, sentimental traces | |
| In your unletter’d, nameless faces! | |
| In arioso trills and graces | |
| Ye never stray; | 160 |
| But gravissimo, solemn basses | |
| Ye hum away. | |
| |
| Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye’re wise; | |
| Nae ferly tho’ ye do despise | |
| The hairum-scairum, ram-stam boys, | 165 |
| The rattling squad: | |
| I see ye upward cast your eyes— | |
| Ye ken the road! | |
| |
| Whilst I—but I shall haud me there, | |
| Wi’ you I’ll scarce gang ony where— | 170 |
| Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair, | |
| But quat my sang, | |
| Content wi’ you to mak a pair. | |
| Whare’er I gang. | |
