Tune–“Killiecrankie.” When Guilford good our pilot stoodAn’ did our hellim thraw, man,Ae night, at tea, began a plea,Within America, man:Then up they gat the maskin-pat,And in the sea did jaw, man;An’ did nae less, in full congress,Than quite refuse our law, man. Then thro’ the lakes Montgomery takes,I wat he was na slaw, man;Down Lowrie’s […]

[Reply to an Announcement By J. Rankine On His Writing to the Poet, That A Girl In That Part Of The Country Was With A Child To Him.] I am a keeper of the lawIn some sma’ points, altho’ not a’;Some people tell me gin I fa’,Ae way or ither,The breaking of ae point, tho’ […]

[The First Instance That Entitled Him To The Venerable Appellation Of Father] Thou’s welcome, wean; mishanter fa’ me,If thoughts o’ thee, or yet thy mamie,Shall ever daunton me or awe me,My bonie lady,Or if I blush when thou shalt ca’ meTyta or daddie. Tho’ now they ca’ me fornicator,An’ tease my name in kintry clatter,The […]

Enclosing Some Poems O Rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine,The wale o’ cocks for fun an’ drinkin!There’s mony godly folks are thinkin,Your dreams and tricksWill send you, Korah-like, a-sinkinStraught to auld Nick’s. Ye hae saw mony cracks an’ cants,And in your wicked, drucken rants,Ye mak a devil o’ the saunts,An’ fill them fou;And then their failings, flaws, […]

Tune–“Black Jock.” My girl she’s airy, she’s buxom and gay;Her breath is as sweet as the blossoms in May;A touch of her lips it ravishes quite:She’s always good natur’d, good humour’d, and free;She dances, she glances, she smiles upon me;I never am happy when out of her sight.

Tune–“I had a horse, I had nae mair.” When first I came to Stewart Kyle,My mind it was na steady;Where’er I gaed, where’er I rade,A mistress still I had aye. But when I came roun’ by Mauchline toun,Not dreadin anybody,My heart was caught, before I thought,And by a Mauchline lady.

[Footnote 1: Burns never published this poem.] O leave novels, ye Mauchline belles,Ye’re safer at your spinning-wheel;Such witching books are baited hooksFor rakish rooks, like Rob Mossgiel;Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons,They make your youthful fancies reel;They heat your brains, and fire your veins,And then you’re prey for Rob Mossgiel. Beware a tongue that’s smoothly […]

Below thir stanes lie Jamie’s banes;O Death, it’s my opinion,Thou ne’er took such a bleth’rin bitchInto thy dark dominion!

In Mauchline there dwells six proper young belles,The pride of the place and its neighbourhood a’;Their carriage and dress, a stranger would guess,In Lon’on or Paris, they’d gotten it a’. Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland’s divine,Miss Smith she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw:There’s beauty and fortune to get wi’ Miss Morton,But Armour’s […]

As father Adam first was fool’d,(A case that’s still too common,)Here lies man a woman ruled,The devil ruled the woman.

O Death, had’st thou but spar’d his life,Whom we this day lament,We freely wad exchanged the wife,And a’ been weel content. Ev’n as he is, cauld in his graff,The swap we yet will do’t;Tak thou the carlin’s carcase aff,Thou’se get the saul o’boot.

One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell,When deprived of her husband she loved so well,In respect for the love and affection he show’d her,She reduc’d him to dust and she drank up the powder.But Queen Netherplace, of a diff’rent complexion,When called on to order the fun’ral direction,Would have eat her dead lord, on a slender […]

As Tam the chapman on a day,Wi’Death forgather’d by the way,Weel pleas’d, he greets a wight so famous,And Death was nae less pleas’d wi’ Thomas,Wha cheerfully lays down his pack,And there blaws up a hearty crack:His social, friendly, honest heartSae tickled Death, they could na part;Sae, after viewing knives and garters,Death taks him hame to […]

Ae day, as Death, that gruesome carl,Was driving to the tither warl’A mixtie–maxtie motley squad,And mony a guilt-bespotted lad–Black gowns of each denomination,And thieves of every rank and station,From him that wears the star and garter,To him that wintles in a halter:Ashamed himself to see the wretches,He mutters, glowrin at the bitches, “By God I’ll […]

When chill November’s surly blastMade fields and forests bare,One ev’ning, as I wander’d forthAlong the banks of Ayr,I spied a man, whose aged stepSeem’d weary, worn with care;His face furrow’d o’er with years,And hoary was his hair. “Young stranger, whither wand’rest thou?”Began the rev’rend sage;“Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain,Or youthful pleasure’s rage?Or haply, […]

[Written With The Supposed View Of Being Handed To Rankine After The Poet’s Interment] He who of Rankine sang, lies stiff and dead,And a green grassy hillock hides his head;Alas! alas! a devilish change indeed.

January While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,An’ bar the doors wi’ driving snaw,An’ hing us owre the ingle,I set me down to pass the time,An’ spin a verse or twa o’ rhyme,In hamely, westlin jingle.While frosty winds blaw in the drift,Ben to the chimla lug,I grudge a wee the great-folk’s gift,That live sae bien an’ […]

An Unco Mournfu’ Tale “Blockheads with reason wicked wits abhor,But fool with fool is barbarous civil war,”–Pope. O a’ ye pious godly flocks,Weel fed on pastures orthodox,Wha now will keep you frae the fox,Or worrying tykes?Or wha will tent the waifs an’ crocks,About the dykes? The twa best herds in a’ the wast,The e’er ga’e […]

Here Holy Willie’s sair worn clayTaks up its last abode;His saul has ta’en some other way,I fear, the left-hand road. Stop! there he is, as sure’s a gun,Poor, silly body, see him;Nae wonder he’s as black’s the grun,Observe wha’s standing wi’ him. Your brunstane devilship, I see,Has got him there before ye;But haud your nine-tail […]

“And send the godly in a pet to pray.”–Pope. Argument. Holy Willie was a rather oldish bachelor elder, in the parish of Mauchline, and much and justly famed for that polemical chattering, which ends in tippling orthodoxy, and for that spiritualized bawdry which refines to liquorish devotion. In a sessional process with a gentleman in […]