Liberty's a
glorious
feast!
Robert Burns
What is reputation's care?
If we lead a life of pleasure,
'Tis no matter how or where!
A fig, &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, &c.
Does the train-attended carriage
Through the country lighter rove?
Does the sober bed of marriage
Witness brighter scenes of love?
A fig, &c.
Life is all a variorum,
We regard not how it goes;
Let them cant about decorum
Who have characters to lose.
A fig, &c.
Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets!
Here's to all the wandering train!
Here's our ragged brats and wallets!
One and all cry out--Amen!
A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: A peculiar sort of whiskey. ]
* * * * *
XV.
DEATH AND DR. HORNBOOK.
A TRUE STORY.
[John Wilson, raised to the unwelcome elevation of hero to this poem,
was, at the time of its composition, schoolmaster in Tarbolton: he as,
it is said, a fair scholar, and a very worthy man, but vain of his
knowledge in medicine--so vain, that he advertised his merits, and
offered advice gratis. It was his misfortune to encounter Burns at a
mason meeting, who, provoked by a long and pedantic speech, from the
Dominie, exclaimed, the future lampoon dawning upon him, "Sit down,
Dr. Hornbook. " On his way home, the poet seated himself on the ledge
of a bridge, composed the poem, and, overcome with poesie and drink,
fell asleep, and did not awaken till the sun was shining over Galston
Moors. Wilson went afterwards to Glasgow, embarked in mercantile and
matrimonial speculations, and prospered, and is still prospering. ]
Some books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn'd:
Ev'n ministers, they ha'e been kenn'd,
In holy rapture,
A rousing whid, at times, to vend,
And nail't wi' Scripture.
But this that I am gaun to tell,
Which lately on a night befel,
Is just as true's the Deil's in h--ll
Or Dublin-city;
That e'er he nearer comes oursel
'S a muckle pity.
The Clachan yill had made me canty,
I was na fou, but just had plenty;
I stacher'd whyles, but yet took tent ay
To free the ditches;
An' hillocks, stanes, and bushes, kenn'd ay
Frae ghaists an' witches.
The rising moon began to glow'r
The distant Cumnock hills out-owre:
To count her horns with a' my pow'r,
I set mysel;
But whether she had three or four,
I could na tell.
