Here's to budgets, bags and
wallets!
Robert Burns - Poems and Songs
Air
Tune--"Jolly Mortals, fill your Glasses. "
See the smoking bowl before us,
Mark our jovial ragged ring!
Round and round take up the chorus,
And in raptures let us sing--
Chorus
A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.
What is title, what is treasure,
What is reputation's care?
If we lead a life of pleasure,
'Tis no matter how or where!
A fig for, &c.
With the ready trick and fable,
Round we wander all the day;
And at night in barn or stable,
Hug our doxies on the hay.
A fig for, &c.
Does the train-attended carriage
Thro' the country lighter rove?
Does the sober bed of marriage
Witness brighter scenes of love?
A fig for, &c.
Life is al a variorum,
We regard not how it goes;
Let them cant about decorum,
Who have character to lose.
A fig for, &c.
Here's to budgets, bags and wallets!
Here's to all the wandering train.
Here's our ragged brats and callets,
One and all cry out, Amen!
Chorus
A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.
Song--For A' That^1
Tune--"For a' that. "
Tho' women's minds, like winter winds,
May shift, and turn, an' a' that,
The noblest breast adores them maist--
A consequence I draw that.
Chorus
For a' that, an' a' that,
And twice as meikle's a' that;
The bonie lass that I loe best
She'll be my ain for a' that.
Great love I bear to a' the fair,
Their humble slave, an' a' that;
But lordly will, I hold it still
A mortal sin to thraw that.
For a' that, &c.
But there is ane aboon the lave,
Has wit, and sense, an' a' that;
A bonie lass, I like her best,
And wha a crime dare ca' that?
For a' that, &c.
In rapture sweet this hour we meet,
Wi' mutual love an' a' that,
[Footnote 1: A later version of "I am a bard
of no regard" in "The Jolly Beggars. "]
But for how lang the flie may stang,
Let inclination law that.
For a' that, &c.