Guilt, erring man, relenting view! What though they ca' me fornicator, ་ Affliction's sons are brothers in dis- An auld wife's tongue 's a feckless matter tress, A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!" I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer But deep this truth impressed my mind— THE POET'S WELCOME TO HIS ILLEGITIMATE CHILD. [Of bonnie Betty's after fate we know nothing; but of the child who was traditionally the living image of Burns, we learn that she died in 1817, at thirty-three years of age, after having married John Bishop, overseer at Polkemmet.] THOU 's Welcome, wean! mischanter fa' me, If ought of thee, or of thy mammy, Shall ever danton me, or awe me, My sweet wee lady, Or if I blush when thou shalt ca' me Tit-ta, or daddy. Wee image of my bonnie Betty, As a' the priests had seen me get thee To gi'e ane fash. Sweet fruit o' mony a merry dint, And if thou be what I wad ha'e thee, If thou be spared: Through a' thy childish years I'll e'e thee, And think 't weel wared. Guid grant that thou may aye inherit EPISTLE TO JOHN RANKINE, ENCLOSING SOME POEMS, [The boon companion here addressed was a sprightly, bousing farmer who resided at Adamhill, near Lochlea, a man entirely after the poet's own heart in his love of good fellowship and his laughing scorn for the sanctimonious. The bonnie hen referred to was, according to Gilbert, one Elizabeth Paton, formerly a servant in the house of the poet's father at Lochlea.] O ROUGH, rude, ready-witted Rankine, The wale o' cocks for fun and drinkin'! There's mony godly folks are thinkin' Your dreams an' tricks Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin' Straught to auld Nick's. Ye ha'e sae mony cracks an' cants, And in your wicked, drucken rants, Ye mak' a devil o' the saunts, An' fill them fou; The poor wee thing was little hurt; I straikit it a wee for sport, Ne'er thinkin' they wad fash me for 't But, de'il ma care! And then their failings, flaws, an' wants | Somebody tells the poacher court Are a' seen through. Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it! That holy robe, oh, dinna tear it! The hale affair. Some auld used hands had ta'en a note, Spare 't for their sakes wha aften wear it, That sic a hen had got a shot; The lads in black! But your curst wit, when it comes near it, Rives 't aff their back. Think, wicked sinner, wha ye 're skaith ing; So gat the whissile o' my groat, An' pay't the fee. But, by my gun, o' guns the wale, It's just the blue-gown badge and claith-An' by my powther an' my hail, ing O' saunts: tak' that, ye lea'e them nae thing To ken them by, Frae ony unregenerate heathen Like you or I. I've sent you here some rhyming ware, Though, faith, sma' heart ha'e I to sing 'T was ae night lately in my fun, And, as the twilight was begun, Thought nane wad ken. An' by my hen, an' by her tail, As soon 's the clockin' time is by, Trowth, they had muckle for to blame ! "T was neither broken wing nor limb, But twa-three draps about the wame, Scarce through the feathers; An' baith a yellow George to claim, And thole their blethers! It pits me aye as mad's a hare; DEATH AND DOCTOR HORN- Setting my staff wi' a' my skill, BOOK. A TRUE STORY. To keep me sicker: Though leeward whyles, against my will, I took a bicker. [Composed in the spring of 1785, when Burns I there wi' Something did forgather, SOME books are lies frae end to end, Lay, large an' lang. Its stature seemed lang Scotch ells twa, And some great lies were never penned : The queerest shape that e'er I saw, Ev'n ministers, they ha'e been kenned, In holy rapture, A rousing whid at times to vend, And nail't wi' Scripture. But this that I am gaun to tell, The clachan yill had made me canty, I was na fou, but just had plenty ; For fient a wame it had ava; And then, its shanks, They were as thin, as sharp an' sma' "Guid-e'en," quo' I; "Friend! ha'e ye been mawin' When ither folk are busy sawin'?" At length, says I, "Friend, whare ye Will ye go back?" I stachered whyles, but yet took tent It spak' right howe,-"My name is "Weel, weel!" says I, "a bargain be 't; Come, gie's your hand, an' sae, we're gree't; We'll ease our shanks an' tak' a seat, "Hornbook was by, wi' ready art, Come, gie 's your news; Fient haet o't wad ha'e pierced the heart This while ye ha'e been mony a gate, At mony a house." “Ay, ay!” quo' he, an' shook his head, An' choke the breath: Folk maun do something for their bread, "Sax thousand years are near hand fled "Ye ken Jock Hornbook i' the clachan, He's grown sae weel acquaint wi' Buchan "I drew my scythe in sic a fury, Withstood the shock; "Even them he canna get attended, Just "And then a' doctor's saws and whittles, The weans haud out their fingers laughin' Their Latin names as fast he rattles And pouk my hips. As A, B, C. "Calces o' fossils, earth, and trees; "T was but yestreen, nae farther gaen, "Forbye some new, uncommon weapons, I threw a noble throw at ane; Wi' less, I'm sure, I've hundreds slain; But de'il-ma-care, It just played dirl on the bane, But did nae mair. Urinus spiritus of capons; Or mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings; Sal-alkali o' midge-tail clippings, And mony mae." They'll a' be trenched wi' mony a sheugh Neist time we meet, I'll wad a groat, "Whare I killed ane a fair strae death, "An honest wabster to his trade, Whase wife's twa nieves were scarce weel-bred, Gat tippence-worth to mend her head, When it was sair; The wife slade cannie to her bed, But ne'er spak' mair. "A countra laird had ta'en the batts, "A bonnie lass, ye kenned her name, Some ill-brewn drink had hoved her wame; She trusts hersel', to hide the shame, In Hornbook's care; Horn sent her aff to her lang hame, To hide it there. But just as he began to tell, The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell Some wee short hour ayont the twal, Which raised us baith: I took the way that pleased mysel', And sae did Death. THE TWA HERDS; OR, THE HOLY TULZIE. [According to Burns, this was the first of his poetic offspring to see the light, it being, as he describes it, "a burlesque lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both of them dramatis persone in my Holy Fair.' I had a notion myself," he adds, "that the piece had some merit; but, to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend who was very fond of such things, and told him that I could not guess who was the author of it, but I thought it pretty clever. With a certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with a roar of applause." The theological disputants, who here sketched to the life as with a pencil of lunar caustic, were both of them fanatical champions of the Auld Light, always an object of abhorrence to Burns; one of them being the Rev. Alexander Moodie, parish minister of Riccarton while the other was the Rev. John Russell, variously known under the sobriquets of Black are |