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!”
     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,
     A’ future ages;
     Now moths deform, in shapeless tatters,
     Their unknown pages.”

     Then farewell hopes of laurel-boughs,
     To garland my poetic brows! 
     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
     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!

     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,
     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,
     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,
     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;
     An’ fareweel cheerfu’ tankards foamin,
     An’ social noise: 
     An’ fareweel dear, deluding woman,
     The Joy of joys!

     O Life! how pleasant, in thy morning,
     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.

     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,
     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;
     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,
     An’ seize the prey: 
     Then cannie, in some cozie place,
     They close the day.