[Footnote 1: Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different
divisions of a digressive poem.
divisions of a digressive poem.
Robert Burns - Poems and Songs
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.
The thresher's weary flingin-tree,
The lee-lang day had tired me;
And when the day had clos'd his e'e,
Far i' the west,
Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie,
I gaed to rest.
There, lanely by the ingle-cheek,
I sat and ey'd the spewing reek,
That fill'd, wi' hoast-provoking smeek,
The auld clay biggin;
An' heard the restless rattons squeak
About the riggin.
All in this mottie, misty clime,
I backward mus'd on wasted time,
How I had spent my youthfu' prime,
An' done nae thing,
But stringing 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 and clarkit
My cash-account;
While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit.
Is a' th' amount.
[Footnote 1: Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different
divisions of a digressive poem. See his Cath-Loda, vol. 2 of
M'Pherson's translation. --R. B. ]
I started, mutt'ring, "blockhead! coof! "
And heav'd on high my waukit loof,
To swear by a' yon starry roof,
Or some rash aith,
That I henceforth wad be rhyme-proof
Till my last breath--
When click! the string the snick did draw;
An' 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;
The infant aith, half-form'd, was crusht
I glowr'd as eerie's I'd been dusht
In some wild glen;
When sweet, like honest Worth, she blusht,
An' stepped ben.
Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs
Were twisted, gracefu', round her brows;
I took her for some Scottish Muse,
By that same token;
And come to stop those reckless vows,
Would soon been broken.
A "hair-brain'd, sentimental trace"
Was strongly marked in her face;
A wildly-witty, rustic grace
Shone full upon her;
Her eye, ev'n turn'd on empty space,
Beam'd keen with honour.
Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen,
Till half a leg was scrimply seen;
An' such a leg! my bonie Jean
Could only peer it;
Sae straught, sae taper, tight an' 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 seem'd, to my astonish'd view,
A well-known land.
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.
The thresher's weary flingin-tree,
The lee-lang day had tired me;
And when the day had clos'd his e'e,
Far i' the west,
Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie,
I gaed to rest.
There, lanely by the ingle-cheek,
I sat and ey'd the spewing reek,
That fill'd, wi' hoast-provoking smeek,
The auld clay biggin;
An' heard the restless rattons squeak
About the riggin.
All in this mottie, misty clime,
I backward mus'd on wasted time,
How I had spent my youthfu' prime,
An' done nae thing,
But stringing 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 and clarkit
My cash-account;
While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit.
Is a' th' amount.
[Footnote 1: Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different
divisions of a digressive poem. See his Cath-Loda, vol. 2 of
M'Pherson's translation. --R. B. ]
I started, mutt'ring, "blockhead! coof! "
And heav'd on high my waukit loof,
To swear by a' yon starry roof,
Or some rash aith,
That I henceforth wad be rhyme-proof
Till my last breath--
When click! the string the snick did draw;
An' 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;
The infant aith, half-form'd, was crusht
I glowr'd as eerie's I'd been dusht
In some wild glen;
When sweet, like honest Worth, she blusht,
An' stepped ben.
Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs
Were twisted, gracefu', round her brows;
I took her for some Scottish Muse,
By that same token;
And come to stop those reckless vows,
Would soon been broken.
A "hair-brain'd, sentimental trace"
Was strongly marked in her face;
A wildly-witty, rustic grace
Shone full upon her;
Her eye, ev'n turn'd on empty space,
Beam'd keen with honour.
Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen,
Till half a leg was scrimply seen;
An' such a leg! my bonie Jean
Could only peer it;
Sae straught, sae taper, tight an' 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 seem'd, to my astonish'd view,
A well-known land.
