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TO A HAGGIS.

FAIR fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!

Aboon them a'

ye tak your place,

Painch, tripe, or thairm :

Weel are ye wordy of a grace

As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,

Your pin wad help to mend a mill

In time o' need,

While thro' your pores the dews distil

Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic labour dight,

An' cut you up wi' ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like onie ditch;

And then, O what a glorious sight,

Warm-reekin, rich!

Then horn for horn they stretch an' strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
'Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;

Then auld guid man, maist like to rive,
Bethankit hums.

Is there that o'er his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,

Or fricassee wad mak her spew

Wi' perfect sconner,

Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view

On sic a dinner!

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;

Thro' bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the rustic, haggis-fed,

The trembling earth resounds his tread,

Clap in his walie nieve a blade,

He'll mak it whissle;

An' legs, an' arms, an' heads will sned,

Like taps o' thrissle.

Ye pow'rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;

But, if ye wish her gratefu' pray'r,

Gie her a Haggis!

The joyous nationality of this poem is but part of its merit. The " Haggis" forms one of the most savoury morsels in Scottish cookery; yet I have seen men in the south look wild at it who could swallow, without pausing, that singular mixture of fatness and sweetness -minced meat. Burns, it is said, once uttered something like this poem in prose when called on to say grace where a Haggis was on the board, and the applause which he obtained induced him to work it into verse. I heard, when a boy, the Address to the Haggis recited in a boon of reapers: an old highland bandsman listened with great attention; when these lines were repeated,—

"Clap in his walie nieve a blade
He'll mak it whissle,"

"It's

he could no longer contain himself, but cried out, the God's truth! To make a steel blade whistle requires a man! There was Donald Bane, when sixty-six years old, and no sae souple as he had been, was called on to fight for the honour o' the broad sword, with a foreign braggart, Donald-said his chief-d'ye think yere yauld enough for him?' with that he whipt out his claymore— a broad bright bit o' steel it was-and made it whistle in the air like a hunting hawk; weel! away he gaed up the

Lawn-market to the strife, and ye'll na hinder some ane frae saying,Ah, Donald's failed; I doubt he'll no do!' When Donald heard this, I wish ye had seen but his ee -it glented fire-he lap right up into the air, and seizing a lamp-iron far aboon other men's reach, hung by ae hand for a moment, sprang proudly down, and cried, She'll do yet!' And he did do " The classical reader will perceive in this rustic reminiscence a resemblance to that fine passage in the "Odyssey," where Ulysses strung

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"His own huge bow, and with his right hand trill'd

The nerve which in its quick vibration sang

As with a swallow's voice."

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The component parts of a Haggis are sometimes inquired anxiously into by men who love the pleasures of the table." Pray, sir,” said a man of the south, "why do you boil it in a sheep's bag; and, above all, what is it made of?"-" Sir," answered a man of the north, boil it in a sheep's bag, because such was the primitive way; it was invented, sir, before linen was thought of: and as for what it is made of, I dare not trust myself with telling-I can never name all the savoury items without tears; and surely you would not wish me to expose myself in a public company?" A Haggis in the witty and whimsical "Noctes Ambrosiana" of Blackwood, bursts when cut up over plate and table, floods the apartment, to the horror of the Ettrick Shepherd, and the astonishment of Christopher North.

A PRAYER

UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT ANGUISH.

O THOU Great Being! what Thou art
Surpasses me to know:

Yet sure I am, that known to Thee

Are all thy works below.

Thy creature here before Thee stands,
All wretched and distrest;

Yet sure those ills that wring my soul
Obey Thy high behest.

Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act
From cruelty or wrath!

O, free my weary eyes from tears,
Or close them fast in death!

But if I must afflicted be,

To suit some wise design;

Then man my soul with firm resolves,

To bear and not repine!

The following melancholy note accompanies these verses in the original manuscript of the Poet :-" There was a certain period of my life that my spirit was broke by repeated losses and disasters, which threatened, and, indeed, effected the utter ruin of my fortune. My body, too, was attacked by that most dreadful distemper, a hypochondria, or confirmed melancholy. In this wretched state, the recollection of which makes me yet shudder, I hung my harp on the willow trees, except in some lucid intervals, in one of which I composed the above."

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