When merry Yule Day comes, I trow, You'll scantlins find a hungry mou; Sma' are our cares, our stamacks fou O' gusty gear
And kickshaws, strangers to our view Sin' fairn-year.
Ye browster wives, now busk ye bra,
And fling your sorrows far awa';
Then come and gie's the tither blaw
O' reaming ale,
Mair precious than the Well of Spa,
Our hearts to heal.
Then, though at odds wi' a' the warl',
Amang oursells we'll never quarrel;
Though Discord gie a cankered 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 roset weel your fiddlesticks;
But banish vile Italian tricks.
From out your quorum,
Nor fortes wi' pianos mix—
Gie's Tullochgorum'!
For naught 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 dawning of the year;
Let blithesome innocence appear,
To crown our joy;
Nor envy, wi' sarcastic sneer,
Our bliss destroy.
And thou, great god of aqua vita!
Wha sways the empire of this city,-
When fou we're sometimes capernoity,-
Be thou prepared
To hedge us frae that black banditti,
The City Guard.
When I think on the happy days
I spent wi' you, my dearie;
And now what lands between us lie,
How can I be but eerie!
How slow ye move, ye heavy hours,
As ye were wae and weary!
It was na sae ye glinted by
When I was wi' my dearie.
GENERAL MOTIVES FOR LENITY
Be this, ye rural Magistrates, your plan:
Firm be your justice, but be friends to man.
He whom the mighty master of this ball
We fondly deem, or farcically call,
To own the patriarch's truth however loth,
Holds but a mansion crushed before the moth.
Frail in his genius, in his heart, too, frail,
Born but to err, and erring to bewail;
Shalt thou his faults with eye severe explore,
And give to life one human weakness more?
Still mark if vice or nature prompts the deed;
Still mark the strong temptation and the need;
On pressing want, on famine's powerful call,
At least more lenient let thy justice fall.
For him who, lost to every hope of life,
Has long with fortune held unequal strife,
Known to no human love, no human care,
The friendless, homeless object of despair;
For the poor vagrant, feel while he complains,
Nor from sad freedom send to sadder chains.
Alike, if folly or misfortune brought
Those last of woes his evil days have wrought;
Believe with social mercy and with me,
Folly's misfortune in the first degree.
Perhaps on some inhospitable shore
The houseless wretch a widowed parent bore,
Who, then no more by golden prospects led,
Of the poor Indian begged a leafy bed;
Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain,
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery, baptized in tears!
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!
Let the water and the blood
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfil Thy law's demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.
Nothing in my hand I bring;
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die!
While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyestrings break in death,
When I soar through tracts unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment-throne;
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!
Come gie's a sang! Montgomery cried,
And lay your disputes all aside;
What signifies 't for folk to chide
For what's been done before 'em?
Let Whig and Tory all agree,
Whig and Tory, Whig and Tory,
Let Whig and Tory all agree
To drop their Whig-mig-morum!
Let Whig and Tory all agree
To spend the night in mirth and glee,
And cheerfu' sing, alang wi' me,
The reel o' Tullochgorum!
O, Tullochgorum's my delight;
It gars us a' in ane unite;
And ony sumph' that keeps up spite,
In conscience I abhor him:
For blythe and cheery we's be a', Blythe and cheery, blythe and cheery, Blythe and cheery we's be a',
And mak a happy quorum;
For blythe and cheery we's be a',
As lang as we hae breath to draw,
And dance, till we be like to fa',
The reel o' Tullochgorum!
There needs na be sae great a phrase
Wi' dringing dull Italian lays;
I wadna gi'e our ain strathspeys
For half a hundred score o' 'em: They're douff and dowie at the best, Douff and dowie, douff and dowie, They're douff and dowie at the best, Wi' a' their variorum;
They're douff and dowie at the best,
Their allegros and a' the rest;
They canna please a Scottish taste,
Compared wi' Tullochgorum.
Let warldly minds themselves oppress
Wi' fears of want and double cess,
And sullen sots themselves distress
Wi' keeping up decorum:
Shall we sae sour and sulky sit?
Sour and sulky, sour and sulky,
Shall we sae sour and sulky sit,
Like auld Philosophorum?
Shall we so sour and sulky sit,
Wi' neither sense nor mirth nor wit,
Nor ever rise to shake a fit
To the reel o' Tullochgorum?
May choicest blessings still attend
Each honest, open-hearted friend;
And calm and quiet be his end,
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