The lads an' lasses, blythely bent To mind baith saul an' body, Sit round the table, weel content, An' steer about the toddy. On this ane's dress, an' that ane's leuk, To meet some day. But now the Lord's ain trumpet touts, An' echoes back return the shouts- His piercing words, like Highlan' swords, His talk o' hell, whare devils dwell, Wi' fright that day. A vast, unbottom'd, boundless pit, Fill'd fou o' lowin' brunstane, Wha's ragin flame, an' scorchin' heat, Wad melt the hardest whun-stane! The half asleep start up wi' fear, An' think they hear it roarin', When presently it does appear, 'Twas but some neebor snorin' Asleep that day. 'Twad be owre lang a tale to tell How monie stories past, An' how they crowded to the yill, When they were a' dismist : An' cheese an' bread, frae women's laps, In comes a gaucie, gash guidwife, Syne draws her kebbuck an' her knife, The auld guidmen, about the grace, Till some ane by his bonnet lays, Waesucks! for him that gets nae lass, Or lasses that hae naething; Sma' need has he to say a grace, (1) Shakspeare's Hamlet. [This sarcastic sally was written on the admission of Mr. Mackinlay, as one of the ministers to the Laigh, or parochial Kirk of Kilmarnock, on the 6th of April, 1786. That reverend person was an Auld Light professor, and his ordination incensed all the New Lights, hence the bitter levity of the poem. These dissensions have long since passed away: Mackinlay, a pious and kind-hearted sincere man, lived down all the personalities of the satire, and though unwelcome at first, he soon learned to regard them only as a proof of the powers of the poet.] KILMARNOCK Wabsters fidge an' claw, Of a' denominations, Swith to the Laigh Kirk, ane an' a', An' there tak up your stations; Then aff to Begbie's in a raw, An' pour divine libations For joy this day. THE CALF. TO THE REV. MR. JAMES STEVEN. On his text, MALACHI IV. 2.-" And ye shall go forth, and grow up as CALVES of the stall." [The laugh which this little poem raised against Steven was a loud one. Burns composed it during the sermon to which it relates, and repeated it to Gavin Hamilton, with whom he happened on that day to dine. The Calf-for the name it seems stuck -came to London, where the younger brother of Burns heard him preach in Covent Garden Chapel, in 1790.] RIGHT, Sir! your text I'll prove it true, And should come patron be so kind As bless you wi' a kirk, I doubt na, Sir, but then we'll find Ye're still as great a Stirk. (1) "New Light" is a cant phrase in the West of Scotland for those religious opinions which Dr. Taylor of Norwich has ¿efended. XXIII. TO JAMES SMITH. "Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul! Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society! I owe thee much!--" BLAIR. [The James Smith to whom this epistle is addressed was at that time a small shopkeeper in Mauchline, and the comrade or rather follower of the poet in all his merry expeditions with "Yill caup commentators." He was present in Posie Nansie's when the Jolly Beggars first dawned on the fancy of Burns: the comrades of the poet's heart were not generally very successful in life: Smith left Mauchline, and established a calico-printing manufactory at Avon near Linlithgow, where his friend found him in all appearance prosperous in 1788: but this was not to last; he failed in his speculations and went to the West Indies, and died early. His wit was ready, and his manners lively and unaffected.] [The Vision and the Brigs of Ayr are said by Jeffrey to be "the only pieces by Burns which can be classed under the head of pure fiction:" but Tam o' Shanter and twenty other of his compositions have an equal right to be classed with works of fiction. The edition of this poem published at Kilmarnock differs in some particulars from the edition which followed in Edinburgh. The maiden whose foot was so handsome as to match that of Coila was a Bess at first, but old affection triumphed, and Jean, for whom the honour was from the first designed, regained her place. The robe of Coila, too, was expanded, so far indeed that she got more cloth than she could well carry.] THE sun had clos'd the winter day, To kail-yards green, While faithless snaws ilk step betray Whare she has been. (1) Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See his "Cath-Loda," vol. ii. of Macpher son's translation. |