No More Learning

Come wealth, come poortith, late or soon,
Heaven send your heart-strings ay in tune,
And screw your temper pins aboon
A fifth or mair,
The melancholious, lazy croon
O' cankrie care.

May still your life from day to day
Nae "lente largo" in the play,
But "allegretto forte" gay
Harmonious flow:
A sweeping, kindling, bauld strathspey--
Encore! Bravo!

A blessing on the cheery gang
Wha dearly like a jig or sang,
An' never think o' right an' wrang
By square an' rule,
But as the clegs o' feeling stang
Are wise or fool.

My hand-waled curse keep hard in chase
The harpy, hoodock, purse-proud race,
Wha count on poortith as disgrace--
Their tuneless hearts!
May fireside discords jar a base
To a' their parts!

But come, your hand, my careless brither,
I' th' ither warl', if there's anither,
An' that there is I've little swither
About the matter;
We check for chow shall jog thegither,
I'se ne'er bid better.

We've faults and failings--granted clearly,
We're frail backsliding mortals merely,
Eve's bonny squad, priests wyte them sheerly
For our grand fa';
But stilt, but still, I like them dearly--
God bless them a'!

Ochon! for poor Castalian drinkers,
When they fa' foul o' earthly jinkers,
The witching curs'd delicious blinkers
Hae put me hyte,
And gart me weet my waukrife winkers,
Wi' girnan spite.

But by yon moon! --and that's high swearin'--
An' every star within my hearin'!
An' by her een wha was a dear ane!
I'll ne'er forget;
I hope to gie the jads a clearin'
In fair play yet.

My loss I mourn, but not repent it,
I'll seek my pursie whare I tint it,
Ance to the Indies I were wonted,
Some cantraip hour,
By some sweet elf I'll yet be dinted,
Then, _vive l'amour_!
_Faites mes baisemains respectueuse_,
To sentimental sister Susie,
An' honest Lucky; no to roose you,
Ye may be proud,
That sic a couple fate allows ye
To grace your blood.

Nae mair at present can I measure,
An' trowth my rhymin' ware's nae treasure;
But when in Ayr, some half-hour's leisure,
Be't light, be't dark,
Sir Bard will do himself the pleasure
To call at Park.

ROBERT BURNS.

_Mossgiel, 30th October_, 1786.

* * * * *




LXXI.

THE BRIGS OF AYR,

A POEM,

INSCRIBED TO J. BALLANTYNE, ESQ. , AYR.

[Burns took the hint of this Poem from the Planestanes and Causeway of
Fergusson, but all that lends it life and feeling belongs to his own
heart and his native Ayr: he wrote it for the second edition of his
poems, and in compliment to the patrons of his genius in the west.
Ballantyne, to whom the Poem is inscribed, was generous when the
distresses of his farming speculations pressed upon him: others of his
friends figure in the scene: Montgomery's courage, the learning of
Dugald Stewart, and condescension and kindness of Mrs. General
Stewart, of Stair, are gratefully recorded. ]


The simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough,
Learning his tuneful trade from ev'ry bough;
The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,
Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn bush:
The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill,
Or deep-ton'd plovers, gray, wild-whistling o'er the hill;
Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed,
To hardy independence bravely bred,
By early poverty to hardship steel'd,
And train'd to arms in stern misfortune's field--
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
Or labour hard the panegyric close,
With all the venal soul of dedicating prose?
No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings,
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard,
Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward!
Still, if some patron's gen'rous care he trace,
Skill'd in the secret to bestow with grace;
When Ballantyne befriends his humble name,
And hands the rustic stranger up to fame,
With heart-felt throes his grateful bosom swells,
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.