Poems and Songs of Robert Burns
Impromptu On Carron Iron Works
We cam na here to view your warks,
In hopes to be mair wise,
But only, lest we gang to hell,
It may be nae surprise:
But when we tirl’d at your door
Your porter dought na hear us;
Sae may, shou’d we to Hell’s yetts come,
Your billy Satan sair us!
To Miss Ferrier
Enclosing the Elegy on Sir J. H. Blair.
Nae heathen name shall I prefix,
Frae Pindus or Parnassus;
Auld Reekie dings them a’ to sticks,
For rhyme-inspiring lasses.
Jove’s tunefu’ dochters three times three
Made Homer deep their debtor;
But, gien the body half an e’e,
Nine Ferriers wad done better!
Last day my mind was in a bog,
Down George’s Street I stoited;
A creeping cauld prosaic fog
My very sense doited.
Do what I dought to set her free,
My saul lay in the mire;
Ye turned a neuk—I saw your e’e—
She took the wing like fire!
The mournfu’ sang I here enclose,
In gratitude I send you,
And pray, in rhyme as weel as prose,
A’ gude things may attend you!
Written By Somebody On The Window
Of an Inn at Stirling, on seeing the Royal Palace in ruin.
Here Stuarts once in glory reigned,
And laws for Scotland’s weal ordained;
But now unroof’d their palace stands,
Their sceptre’s sway’d by other hands;
Fallen indeed, and to the earth
Whence groveling reptiles take their birth.
The injured Stuart line is gone,
A race outlandish fills their throne;
An idiot race, to honour lost;
Who know them best despise them most.
The Poet’s Reply To The Threat Of A Censorious Critic
My imprudent lines were answered, very petulantly, by somebody, I
believe, a Rev. Mr. Hamilton. In a MS., where I met the answer, I wrote
below:—
With Esop’s lion, Burns says: Sore I feel
Each other’s scorn, but damn that ass’ heel!
The Libeller’s Self-Reproof^1
Rash mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name
Shall no longer appear in the records of Fame;
Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible,
Says, the more ’tis a truth, sir, the more ’tis a libel!
Verses Written With A Pencil
Over the Chimney—piece in the Parlour of the Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth.
Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,
These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;
O’er many a winding dale and painful steep,
Th’ abodes of covey’d grouse and timid sheep,
[Footnote 1: These are rhymes of dubious authenticity.—Lang.]
My savage journey, curious, I pursue,
Till fam’d Breadalbane opens to my view.—
The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
The woods wild scatter’d, clothe their ample sides;
Th’ outstretching lake, imbosomed ’mong the hills,
The eye with wonder and amazement fills;
The Tay meand’ring sweet in infant pride,
The palace rising on his verdant side,
The lawns wood-fring’d in Nature’s native taste,
The hillocks dropt in Nature’s careless haste,
The arches striding o’er the new-born stream,
The village glittering in the noontide beam—
Poetic ardours in my bosom swell,
Lone wand’ring by the hermit’s mossy cell;
The sweeping theatre of hanging woods,
Th’ incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods—
Here Poesy might wake her heav’n-taught lyre,
And look through Nature with creative fire;
Here, to the wrongs of Fate half reconcil’d,
Misfortunes lighten’d steps might wander wild;
And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds,
Find balm to soothe her bitter, rankling wounds:
Here heart-struck Grief might heav’nward stretch her scan,
And injur’d Worth forget and pardon man.
Song—The Birks Of Aberfeldy
Tune—“The Birks of Abergeldie.”
Chorus.—Bonie lassie, will ye go,
Will ye go, will ye go,
Bonie lassie, will ye go
To the birks of Aberfeldy!
Now Simmer blinks on flowery braes,
And o’er the crystal streamlets plays;
Come let us spend the lightsome days,
In the birks of Aberfeldy.
Bonie lassie, &c.
While o’er their heads the hazels hing,
The little birdies blythely sing,
Or lightly flit on wanton wing,
In the birks of Aberfeldy.
Bonie lassie, &c.
The braes ascend like lofty wa’s,
The foaming stream deep-roaring fa’s,
O’erhung wi’ fragrant spreading shaws—
The birks of Aberfeldy.
Bonie lassie, &c.
The hoary cliffs are crown’d wi’ flowers,
White o’er the linns the burnie pours,
And rising, weets wi’ misty showers
The birks of Aberfeldy.
Bonie lassie, &c.
Let Fortune’s gifts at randoe flee,
They ne’er shall draw a wish frae me;
Supremely blest wi’ love and thee,
In the birks of Aberfeldy.
Bonie lassie, &c.
The Humble Petition Of Bruar Water
To the noble Duke of Athole.
My lord, I know your noble ear
Woe ne’er assails in vain;
Embolden’d thus, I beg you’ll hear
Your humble slave complain,
How saucy Phoebus’ scorching beams,
In flaming summer-pride,
Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams,
And drink my crystal tide.^1
The lightly-jumping, glowrin’ trouts,
That thro’ my waters play,
If, in their random, wanton spouts,
They near the margin stray;
[Footnote 1: Bruar Falls, in Athole, are exceedingly picturesque
and beautiful; but their effect is much impaired by the want of
trees and shrubs.—R.B.]
If, hapless chance! they linger lang,
I’m scorching up so shallow,
They’re left the whitening stanes amang,
In gasping death to wallow.
Last day I grat wi’ spite and teen,
As poet Burns came by.
That, to a bard, I should be seen
Wi’ half my channel dry;
A panegyric rhyme, I ween,
Ev’n as I was, he shor’d me;
But had I in my glory been,
He, kneeling, wad ador’d me.
Here, foaming down the skelvy rocks,
In twisting strength I rin;
There, high my boiling torrent smokes,
Wild-roaring o’er a linn:
Enjoying each large spring and well,
As Nature gave them me,
I am, altho’ I say’t mysel’,
Worth gaun a mile to see.
Would then my noble master please
To grant my highest wishes,
He’ll shade my banks wi’ tow’ring trees,
And bonie spreading bushes.
Delighted doubly then, my lord,
You’ll wander on my banks,
And listen mony a grateful bird
Return you tuneful thanks.
The sober lav’rock, warbling wild,
Shall to the skies aspire;
The gowdspink, Music’s gayest child,
Shall sweetly join the choir;
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear,
The mavis mild and mellow;
The robin pensive Autumn cheer,
In all her locks of yellow.
This, too, a covert shall ensure,
To shield them from the storm;
And coward maukin sleep secure,
Low in her grassy form:
Here shall the shepherd make his seat,
To weave his crown of flow’rs;
Or find a shelt’ring, safe retreat,
From prone-descending show’rs.
And here, by sweet, endearing stealth,
Shall meet the loving pair,
Despising worlds, with all their wealth,
As empty idle care;
The flow’rs shall vie in all their charms,
The hour of heav’n to grace;
And birks extend their fragrant arms
To screen the dear embrace.
Here haply too, at vernal dawn,
Some musing bard may stray,
And eye the smoking, dewy lawn,
And misty mountain grey;
Or, by the reaper’s nightly beam,
Mild-chequering thro’ the trees,
Rave to my darkly dashing stream,
Hoarse-swelling on the breeze.
Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,
My lowly banks o’erspread,
And view, deep-bending in the pool,
Their shadow’s wat’ry bed:
Let fragrant birks, in woodbines drest,
My craggy cliffs adorn;
And, for the little songster’s nest,
The close embow’ring thorn.
So may old Scotia’s darling hope,
Your little angel band
Spring, like their fathers, up to prop
Their honour’d native land!
So may, thro’ Albion’s farthest ken,
To social-flowing glasses,
The grace be—“Athole’s honest men,
And Athole’s bonie lasses!
Lines On The Fall Of Fyers Near Loch-Ness.
Written with a Pencil on the Spot.
Among the heathy hills and ragged woods
The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods;
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds,
Where, thro’ a shapeless breach, his stream resounds.
As high in air the bursting torrents flow,
As deep recoiling surges foam below,
Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends,
And viewles Echo’s ear, astonished, rends.
Dim-seen, through rising mists and ceaseless show’rs,
The hoary cavern, wide surrounding lours:
Still thro’ the gap the struggling river toils,
And still, below, the horrid cauldron boils—
Epigram On Parting With A Kind Host In The Highlands
When Death’s dark stream I ferry o’er,
A time that surely shall come,
In Heav’n itself I’ll ask no more,
Than just a Highland welcome.
Strathallan’s Lament^1
Thickest night, o’erhang my dwelling!
Howling tempests, o’er me rave!
Turbid torrents, wintry swelling,
Roaring by my lonely cave!
[Footnote 1: Burns confesses that his Jacobtism was merely
sentimental “except when my passions were heated by some
accidental cause,” and a tour through the country where Montrose,
Claverhouse, and Prince Charles had fought, was cause enough.
Strathallan fell gloriously at Culloden.—Lang.]
Crystal streamlets gently flowing,
Busy haunts of base mankind,
Western breezes softly blowing,
Suit not my distracted mind.
In the cause of Right engaged,
Wrongs injurious to redress,
Honour’s war we strongly waged,
But the Heavens denied success.
Ruin’s wheel has driven o’er us,
Not a hope that dare attend,
The wide world is all before us—
But a world without a friend.
Castle Gordon
Streams that glide in orient plains,
Never bound by Winter’s chains;
Glowing here on golden sands,
There immix’d with foulest stains
From Tyranny’s empurpled hands;
These, their richly gleaming waves,
I leave to tyrants and their slaves;
Give me the stream that sweetly laves
The banks by Castle Gordon.
Spicy forests, ever gray,
Shading from the burning ray
Hapless wretches sold to toil;
Or the ruthless native’s way,
Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil:
Woods that ever verdant wave,
I leave the tyrant and the slave;
Give me the groves that lofty brave
The storms by Castle Gordon.
Wildly here, without control,
Nature reigns and rules the whole;
In that sober pensive mood,
Dearest to the feeling soul,
She plants the forest, pours the flood:
Life’s poor day I’ll musing rave
And find at night a sheltering cave,
Where waters flow and wild woods wave,
By bonie Castle Gordon.
Song—Lady Onlie, Honest Lucky
Tune—“The Ruffian’s Rant.”
A’ The lads o’ Thorniebank,
When they gae to the shore o’ Bucky,
They’ll step in an’ tak a pint
Wi’ Lady Onlie, honest Lucky.
Chorus.—Lady Onlie, honest Lucky,
Brews gude ale at shore o’ Bucky;
I wish her sale for her gude ale,
The best on a’ the shore o’ Bucky.