ADDRESS TO THE DE'IL

I've heard my reverend Graunie say,
In lanely glens ye like to stray;
Or where auld ruined castles, gray,
Nod to the moon,

Ye fright the nightly wanderer's way,
Wi' eldritch croon.1

When twilight did my Graunie summon,
To say her prayers, douce, honest woman!
Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin,
Wi' eerie drone;

Or, rustlin', through the boortries 2 comin',
Wi' heavy groan.

3

Ae dreary, windy, winter night,
The stars shot down wi' sklentin light,
Wi' you, mysel', I gat a fright,

5

Ayont the lough!
Ye, like a rash-bush stood in sight,
Wi' waving sugh.

The cudgel in my nieve did shake,
Each bristled hair stood like a stake,
When wi' an eldritch stour, quaick-quaick—
Amang the springs

8

Away ye squattered, like a drake,

On whistling wings.

Let Warlocks grim, an' withered hags,
Tell how wi' you on ragweed nags,
They skim the nuirs, an' dizzy crags,
Wi' wicked speed;

And in kirkyards renew their leagues
Owre howkit9 dead.

Thence countra wives, wi' toil an' pain,
May plunge an' plunge the kirn" in vain ;
For, oh! the yellow treasure's ta'en

By witching skill;

11

An' dawtit twal-pint Hawkie's gaen

As yell's the Bill.12

2 Elder-bushes.

5 Rush-bush.

9 Disinterred dead bodies.

"Petted twelve-pint Hawkie-i.e., the favourite cow.

12 Milkless as the bull.

3 Slanting.
6 Fist.
8 Fluttered.

10 Churn.

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Thence mystic knots mak' great abuse,
On young guidman, fond, keen, an' crouse;
When the best wark-lume i' the house,

By cantrip wit,

Is instant made no worth a louse,

Just at the bit.

When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord,
An' float the jingling icy-boord,
Then water-kelpies haunt the foord

By your direction,

An' 'nighted trav'llers are allured

To their destruction.

An' aft your moss-traversing Spunkies*
Decoy the wight that late an' drunk is:
The bleezing, curst, mischievous monkeys
Delude his eyes,

Till in some miry slough he sunk is,
Ne'er mair to rise.

When Masons' mystic word an' grip,
In storms an' tempests raise you up,
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop,
Or, strange to tell!
ye wad whip

The youngest Brother

Aff straught to hell!

Lang syne, in Eden's bonnie yard,
When youthfu' lovers first were paired,
An' all the soul of love they shared,

The raptured hour,

Sweet on the fragrant, flowery swaird,

In shady bower:

5

Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog;
Ye came to Paradise incog.,

An' played on man a cursed brogue,

6

(Black be your fa'!)

An' gied the infant warld a shog,"

'Maist ruined a'.

1

9 Smoky clothes.

THE VISION.

An' how ye gat him i' your thrall,
An' brak him out o' house an' hall,
While scabs an' blotches did him gall,

Wi' bitter claw,

An' lowsed his ill-tongued, wicked Scawl,'
Was warst ava?

But a' your doings to rehearse,
Your wily snares an' fechtin' fierce,
Sin' that day Michael" did you pierce,
Down to this time,

Wad ding a Lallan3 tongue, or Erse,

In prose or rhyme.

An' now, auld Cloots, I ken ye're thinkin',
A certain Bardie's rantin', drinkin';
Some luckless hour will send him linkin'

But, fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben!
Oh, wad ye tak' a thought an' men'!5
Ye aiblins might-I dinna ken-

6

Still hae a stake

I'm wae to think upo' yon den,

Ev'n for your sake!

8

THE VISION.

DUAN FIRST.7

THE sun had closed the winter day,
The Curlers quat their roaring play,
An' hungered maukin9 ta'en her way
To kail-yards green,
While faithless snaws ilk step betray
Whare she has been.

2 Vide MILTON, Book vi.
5 Mend.

3 Lowland.

6

Perhaps.

1 Scold (his wife). 4 Dodging. 7 Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See his "Cath-Loda," Vol. ii. of M'Pherson's translation.-BURNS. Curling is a game played with stones on the ice; curlers, the players at it.

8

9 A hare.

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There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek,"
I sat and eyed the spewing reek,
That filled, wi' hoast-provoking smeek,

The auld clay biggin';3
An' heard the restless rattons squeak

About the riggin'.

All in this mottie, misty clime,
I backward mused on wasted time,
How I had spent my youthfu' prime,
An' done nae-thing,
But stringin' blethers up in rhyme,
For fools to sing.

Had I to guid advice but harkit,
I might, by this, hae led a market,
Or strutted in a bank an' clarkit

My cash-account:

While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit,"
Is a' th' amount.

I started, muttering, blockhead! coof!
And heaved on high my waukit loof,"
To swear by a' yon starry roof,

Or some rash aith,

That I, henceforth, would be rhyme-proof

Till my last breath

When click! the string the snick did draw;
And, jee! the door gaed to the wa';

An' by my ingle-lowe I saw,

Now bleezin bright,

A tight, outlandish hizzie, braw,

Come full in sight.

Ye need na doubt, I held my whisht; 10
The infant aith, half-formed, was crusht;
I glowred as eerie's I'd been dusht 11

In some wild glen;

When sweet, like modest worth, she blush

1 Parlour.

4 Nonsense.

6 Ninny.
9 Firelight.

And stepped ben.

2 Chimney-corner.

5 Clothed-sark is a shirt.

7 Hard palm.

10 Silence.

3 House.

8 Latch.

11 Pushed by an ox.

THE VISION.

Green, slender, leaf-clad holly boughs
Were twisted, gracefu', round her brows;
I took her for some Scottish Muse,

By that same token;

An' come to stop those reckless vows,

Wou'd soon been broken.

A "hair-brained, sentimental trace,"
Was strongly marked in her face;
A wildly witty, rustic grace

Shone full upon
Her eye, ev'n turned on empty space,

her;

Beamed keen with Honour.

Down flowed her robe, a tartan sheen,
Till half a leg was scrimply seen;
And such a leg! my bonnie Jean

Could only peer it;

Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean,
Nane else came near it.

Her mantle large, of greenish hue,

My gazing wonder chiefly drew;

Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw
A lustre grand;

And seemed, to my astonished view,

A well-known land.

Here, rivers in the sea were lost;

There, mountains to the skies were tost:
Here, tumbling billows marked the coast

With surging foam;

There, distant shone Art's lofty boast,

The lordly dome.

Here, Doon poured down his far-fetched floods;
There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds:1
Auld hermit Ayr staw2 through his woods,
On to the shore;

And many a lesser torrent scuds,

With seeming roar.

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