No More Learning

bring Black Jock, her state physician,
To see her water:
Alas! there's ground o' great suspicion
She'll ne'er get better.

Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple,
But now she's got an unco ripple;
Haste, gie her name up i' the chapel,
Nigh unto death;
See, how she fetches at the thrapple,
An' gasps for breath.

Enthusiasm's past redemption,
Gaen in a gallopin' consumption,
Not a' the quacks, wi' a' their gumption,
Will ever mend her.
Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption
Death soon will end her.

'Tis you and Taylor[44] are the chief,
Wha are to blame for this mischief,
But gin the Lord's ain focks gat leave,
A toom tar-barrel,
An' twa red peats wad send relief,
An' end the quarrel.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 44: Dr. Taylor, of Norwich. ]

* * * * *




XXIX.

TO

J. LAPRAIK.

AN OLD SCOTTISH BARD.

_April 1st, 1785. _

(FIRST EPISTLE. )

["The epistle to John Lapraik," says Gilbert Burns, "was produced
exactly on the occasion described by the author.
Rocking is a term
derived from primitive times, when our country-women employed their
spare hours in spinning on the roke or distaff. This simple instrument
is a very portable one; and well fitted to the social inclination of
meeting in a neighbour's house; hence the phrase of going a rocking,
or with the roke. As the connexion the phrase had with the implement
was forgotten when the roke gave place to the spinning-wheel, the
phrase came to be used by both sexes on social occasions, and men talk
of going with their rokes as well as women. "]


While briers an' woodbines budding green,
An' paitricks scraichin' loud at e'en,
An' morning poussie whidden seen,
Inspire my muse,
This freedom in an unknown frien'
I pray excuse.

On Fasten-een we had a rockin',
To ca' the crack and weave our stockin',
And there was muckle fun an' jokin',
Ye need na doubt;
At length we had a hearty yokin'
At sang about.

There was ae sang, amang the rest,
Aboon them a' it pleas'd me best,
That some kind husband had addrest
To some sweet wife;
It thirl'd the heart-strings thro' the breast,
A' to the life.

I've scarce heard aught describ'd sae weel,
What gen'rous manly bosoms feel,
Thought I, "Can this be Pope or Steele,
Or Beattie's wark? "
They told me 'twas an odd kind chiel
About Muirkirk.

It pat me fidgin-fain to hear't,
And sae about him there I spier't,
Then a' that ken't him round declar'd
He had injine,
That, nane excell'd it, few cam near't,
It was sae fine.

That, set him to a pint of ale,
An' either douce or merry tale,
Or rhymes an' sangs he'd made himsel',
Or witty catches,
'Tween Inverness and Tiviotdale,
He had few matches.

Then up I gat, an' swoor an aith,
Tho' I should pawn my pleugh and graith,
Or die a cadger pownie's death
At some dyke-back,
A pint an' gill I'd gie them baith
To hear your crack.

But, first an' foremost, I should tell,
Amaist as soon as I could spell,
I to the crambo-jingle fell,
Tho' rude an' rough,
Yet crooning to a body's sel',
Does weel eneugh.

I am nae poet in a sense,
But just a rhymer, like, by chance,
An' hae to learning nae pretence,
Yet what the matter?
Whene'er my Muse does on me glance,
I jingle at her.

Your critic-folk may cock their nose,
And say, "How can you e'er propose,
You, wha ken hardly verse frae prose,
To mak a sang? "
But, by your leaves, my learned foes,
Ye're may-be wrang.