TO MR. M'ADAM, OF CRAIGEN-GILLAN. SIR, o'er a gill I gat your card, Now deil-ma-care about their jaw, 'Twas noble, Sir; 'twas like yoursel, Tho' by his banes who in a tub Match'd Macedonian Sandy! On my ain legs thro' dirt and dub, I independent stand ay.— And when those legs to gude, warm kail, Wi' welcome canna bear me; A lee dyke-side, a sybow-tail, And barley-scone shall cheer me. * Diogenes. Heaven spare you lang to kiss the breath And bless your bonnie lasses baith, And God bless young Dunaskin's laird, And may he wear an auld man's beard, Burns, when asked to dinner, answered in rhyme; if desired to say grace at a meal, he measured it out at once he made returns to tax collectors in verse, and sometimes, when he wished to have a shoe put on his horse, he made the request in song. Instances will be given, in all these cases, in the course of these volumes. The present poem is a hasty, unpremeditated effusion : In the commencement of his poetic career, Burns, received an obliging letter from the laird of Craigen-Gillan, to whom his friend Woodburn was factor; and took up a sheet of paper, as he "sat owre a gill,” and thanked him in verse. The Bard, amid his joy, forgets not that he is independent; and, in asserting his independence, he remembers that old age will come, and perhaps povertybut then "a lee dyke-side and barley scone" would cheer one who had been accustomed to simple fare." ANSWER TO A POETICAL EPISTLE SENT TO THE AUTHOR BY A TAILOR. WHAT ails ye now, ye lousie b-h, I didna suffer ha'f sae much Frae Daddie Auld. What tho' at times when I grow crouse, Gae mind your seam, ye prick the louse, King David o' poetic brief, Wrought 'mang the lasses sic mischief, As fill'd his after life wi' grief, An' bluidy rants, An' yet he's ranked among the chief And maybe, Tam, for a' my cants, An' snugly sit among the saunts But fegs, the Session says I maun Than garrin lasses cowp the cran Clean heels owre body, And sairly thole their mither's ban Afore the howdy. This leads me on, to tell for sport, Cried three times-" Robin! Come hither, lad, an' answer for 't, Ye're blamed for jobbin'." Wi' pinch I pat a Sunday's face on, I scorn'd to lee; An' syne Mess John, beyond expression, Fell foul o' me.' * A tailor in the neighbourhood of Mauchline took it upon him, it seems, to lecture Burns in verse upon his loose conversation and behaviour. The Poet answered in a strain which must have made the other, as Hamilton says, "Strangely fidge end fike." It is, however, too free and unceremonious towards the conclusion, and I have been compelled to omit no less than five verses, in which the Poet gives a description of his interview with the kirk-session, and relates some of the conversation that ensued. The knight of the thimble acquits himself in verse nearly as well as other rhymers who have not the advantage of being poets. He commences by saying he hears that Burns is about to go over the sea, and that the lasses whom he loves so much are in tears; he intimates his concern for the peril of the Poet's soul, put in jeopardy, as he avers, by profane swearing, and by his attachment to the dames of Kyle : "Fu' weel ye ken yell gang to hell. Waes me ye're hurlin' down the hill An' ye'll get leave to swear ye're fill "O Rab' lay by thae foolish tricks, Or some day ye'll come through the pricks Ye'll find hard living at auld Nicks- Our monitor now remembers that he has himself committed, like Burns, the three-fold sin of rhyme, loose speech, and light behavicur; and passes from the singular to the plural with much complacency |