The Muse maun also now implore
Auld wives to steek ilk hole and bore;
If baudrins slip but to the door,
I fear, I fear,

She'll no lang shank upon all four
This time o' year.

Neist day ilk hero tells his news,
O' crackit crowns and broken brows,
And deeds that here forbid the Muse
Her theme to swell,

Or time mair precious to abuse,
Their crimes to tell;

She'll rather to the fields resort,
Where music gars the day seem short;
Where doggies play, and lambies sport,
On gowany braes;

Where peerless Fancy hauds her court,
And tunes her lays.

THE DAFT DAYS.*

Now mirk December's dowie face
Glowers owre the rigs wi' sour grimace,
While, through his minimum o' space,
The bleer-ee'd sun,

Wi' blinkin' light and stealin' pace,
His race doth run.

Frae naked groves nae birdie sings;
To shepherd's pipe nae hillock rings;

*The festive season in Scotland, embracing Christmas or Yule, Hogmanay, the New Year, and Handsel-Monday, have been denominated the "Daft Days," on account of the mad frolics by which they were wont to be distinguished.

The breeze nae odorous flavour brings Frae Borean cave;

And dwynin' Nature droops her wings, Wi' visage grave.

Mankind but scanty pleasure glean
Frae snawy hill or barren plain,
When winter 'midst her nippin' train,
Wi' frozen spear,

Sends drift owre a' his bleak domain,
And guides the weir.

Auld Reekie! thou'rt the canty hole,
A bield for mony a cauldrife soul,
Wha snugly at thine ingle loll,
Baith warm and couth;

While round they gar the bicker roll,
To weet their mouth.

When merry Yule-day comes, I trow,
You'll scantlins find a hungry mou';
Sma' are our cares, our stamacks fu'
O' gusty gear,

And kickshaws, strangers to our view
Sin' fernyear.

Ye browster wives! now busk ye braw,
And fling your sorrows far awa’;
Then, come, and gie's the tither blaw
O' reaming ale,

Mair precious than the well o' Spa,
Our hearts to heal.

Then, though at odds wi' a' the warl', Amang oursels we'll never quarrel; Though discord gie a canker'd snarl To spoil our glee,

As lang's there's pith into the barrel, We'll drink and gree.

Fiddlers! your pins in temper fix,
And rozet weel your fiddlesticks,
But banish vile Italian tricks

Frae out your quorum;

Nor fortes wi' pianos mix-
Gie's Tullochgorum.*

For nought can cheer the heart sae weel
As can a canty Highland reel;

It even vivifies the heel

To skip and dance:

Lifeless is he wha canna feel
Its influence.

Let mirth abound; let social cheer
Invest the dawnin' o' the year;
Let blythesome innocence appear,
To crown our joy;

Nor envy, wi' sarcastic sneer,
Our bliss destroy.

And thou, great god of aqua vitæ!
Wha sway'st the empire o' this city--
When fou, we're sometimes capernoity-
Be thou prepar'd

To hedge us frae that black banditti,
The City Guard.

* Originally employed as such by the author, this stanza is generally prefixed in the form of a motto to the immortal "Tullochgorum" (that "first of Scottish songs," as Burns calls it), by the Rev. John Skinner of Linshart.

THE FARMER'S INGLE.

Et multo in primis hilarans convivia Baccho,
Ante focum, si frigus erit.-Virg. Buc.

WHEN gloamin' grey out-owre the welkin keeks; *
When Batie ca's his owsen to the byre;

When Thrasher John, sair dung, his barn-door steeks,

And lusty lasses at the dightin' tire;

What bangs fu' leal the e'enin's coming cauld,
And gars snaw-tappit winter freeze in vain;
Gars dowie mortal look baith blythe and bauld,
Nor fley'd wi' a' the poortith o' the plain;

Begin, my Muse! and chaunt in hamely strain.

Frae the big stack, weel winnow't on the hill,
Wi' divots theekit frae the weet and drift;
Sods, peats and heathery truffs the chimley fill,
And gar their thickening smeek salute the lift.
The gudeman, new come hame, is blythe to find,
When he out-owre the hallan flings his een,
That ilka turn is handled to his mind;

That a' his housie looks sae cosh and clean;
For cleanly house loes he, though e'er so mean.

Weel kens the gudewife that the pleughs require
A heartsome meltith, and refreshing synd
O' nappy liquor, owre a bleezin' fire;

Sair wark and poortith downa weel be join'd.
Wi' butter'd bannocks now the girdle reeks;
I' the far nook the bowie briskly reams;
The readied kail stand by the chimley cheeks,
And haud the riggin het wi' welcome streams,
Whilk than the daintiest kitchen nicer seems.

* The second stanza of Burns's "Cottar's Saturday Night," it will be observed, bears considerable resemblance, in thought and expression, to the opening lines here. It might be argued, indeed, as has been often hinted, that the earlier poem inspired the later.

Frae this let gentler gabs a lesson lear:

Wad they to labouring lend an eident hand,
They'd rax fell strang upon the simplest fare,
Nor find their stamacks ever at a stand.
Fu' hale and healthy wad they pass the day;

At night in calmest slumbers dose fu' sound;
Nor doctor need their weary life to spae,

Nor drogs their noddle and their sense confound, Till death slip sleely on, and gie the hindmost wound.

On sicken food has mony a doughty deed

By Caledonia's ancestors been done;

By this did mony a wight fu' weirlike bleed
In brulzies frae the dawn to set o' sun.

'Twas this that braced their gardies, stiff and strang, That bent the deadly yew in ancient days;

Laid Denmark's daring sons on yird alang;

Gar'd Scottish thristles bang the Roman bays;
For near our crest their heads they doughtna raise.

The couthy cracks begin when supper's owre;
The cheering bicker gars them glibly gash
O' simmer's showery blinks, and winter sour,
Whase floods did erst their mailin's produce hash.
'Bout kirk and market eke their tales gae on;
How Jock woo'd Jenny here to be his bride;
And there how Marion, for a bastard son,

Upon the cutty stool was forced to ride,
The waefu' scauld o' our Mess John to bide.

The fient a cheep's amang the bairnies now,
For a' their anger's wi' their hunger gane:
Aye maun the childer, wi' a fastin mou',

Grumble and greet, and mak an unco mane.
In rangles round, before the ingle's lowe,

Frae gudame's mouth auld warld tales they hear, O' warlocks loupin' round the wirrikow;

O' ghaists, that win in glen and kirk-yard drear; Whilk touzles a' their tap, and gars them shak wi’ fear!