And others, like your humble servan’,
     Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin,
     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—­
     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.

     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,
     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;
     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,
     In cent. per cent.;
     But give me real, sterling wit,
     And I’m content.

     [Footnote 1:  George Dempster of Dunnichen, M.P.]

     “While ye are pleas’d to keep me hale,
     I’ll sit down o’er my scanty meal,
     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
     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.

     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,
     Your lives, a dyke!

     Nae hair-brain’d, sentimental traces
     In your unletter’d, nameless faces! 
     In arioso trills and graces
     Ye never stray;
     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,
     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—­
     Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair,
     But quat my sang,
     Content wi’ you to mak a pair. 
     Whare’er I gang.

The Vision

     Duan First^1

     The sun had clos’d the winter day,
     The curless quat their roarin play,
     And hunger’d maukin taen her way,
     To kail-yards green,
     While faithless snaws ilk step betray
     Whare she has been.