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(From Auld Reekie)
ON Sunday, here, an altered scene | |
| O’ men and manners meets our een. | |
| Ane wad maist trow, some people chose | |
| To change their faces wi’ their clo’es, | |
| And fain wad gar ilk neibour think | 5 |
| They thirst for guidness as for drink; | |
| But there ’s an unco dearth o’ grace | |
| That has nae mansion but the face, | |
| And never can obtain a part | |
| In benmost corner o’ the heart. | 10 |
| Why should religion mak us sad, | |
| If good frae virtue ’s to be had? | |
| Na! rather gleefu’ turn your face, | |
| Forsake hypocrisy, grimace; | |
| And never hae it understood | 15 |
| You fleg mankind frae being good. | |
| In afternoon, a’ brawly buskit, | |
| The joes and lasses loe to frisk it. | |
| Some tak a great delight to place | |
| The modest bon-grace owre the face; | 20 |
| Though you may see, if so inclined, | |
| The turning o’ the leg behind. | |
| Now, Comely-Garden and the Park | |
| Refresh them, after forenoon’s wark: | |
| Newhaven, Leith, or Canonmills, | 25 |
| Supply them in their Sunday’s gills; | |
| Where writers aften spend their pence, | |
| To stock their heads wi’ drink and sense. | |
| While danderin’ cits delight to stray | |
| To Castlehill or public way, | 30 |
| Where they nae other purpose mean, | |
| Than that fool cause o’ being seen, | |
| Let me to Arthur’s Seat pursue, | |
| Where bonnie pastures meet the view, | |
| And mony a wild-lorn scene accrues, | 35 |
| Befitting Willie Shakespeare’s muse. | |
| If Fancy there would join the thrang, | |
| The desert rocks and hills amang, | |
| To echoes we should lilt and play, | |
| And gie to mirth the livelang day. | 40 |
| Or should some cankered biting shower | |
| The day and a’ her sweets deflower, | |
| To Holyrood-house let me stray, | |
| And gie to musing a’ the day; | |
| Lamenting what auld Scotland knew, | 45 |
| Bein days forever frae her view. | |
| O Hamilton, for shame! the Muse | |
| Would pay to thee her couthy vows, | |
| Gin ye wad tent the humble strain, | |
| And gie ’s our dignity again! | 50 |
| For, O, wae ’s me! the thistle springs | |
| In domicile o’ ancient kings, | |
| Without a patriot to regret | |
| Our palace and our ancient state. | |
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