Coila. Robert Burns (1759-1796). Kyle. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. 1876-79. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. Scotland: Vols. VI-VIII

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Kyle

Coila

Robert Burns (1759–1796)

	(From Epistle to William Simson)

	The district of Kyle, personified under the appellation of Coila. Burns afterwards assumed Coila as the name of his Muse.

AULD Coila now may fidge fu’ fain,
She ’s gotten poets o’ her ain,
Chiels wha their chanters winna hain,
But tune their lays,
Till echoes a’ resound again	5
Her weel-sung praise.

Nae poet thought her worth his while,
To set her name in measured style;
She lay like some unkenned-of isle
Beside New Holland,	10
Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil
Besouth Magellan.

Ramsay and famous Fergusson
Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon;
Yarrow and Tweed, to monie a tune,	15
Owre Scotland rings;
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon,
Naebody sings.

Th’ Illissus, Tiber, Thames, and Seine,
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu’ line;	20
But, Willie, set your fit to mine,
And cock your crest,
We ’ll gar our streams and burnies shine
Up wi’ the best!

We ’ll sing auld Coila’s plains and fells,	25
Her moors red-brown wi’ heather-bells,
Her banks and braes, her dens and dells,
Where glorious Wallace
Aft bure the gree, as story tells,
Frae southron billies.	30

At Wallace’ name what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood!
Oft have our fearless fathers strode
By Wallace’ side,
Still pressing onward, red-wat shod,	35
Or glorious died!

O, sweet are Coila’s haughs and woods
When lintwhites chant amang the buds,
And jinkin’ hares, in amorous whids,
Their loves enjoy,	40
While through the braes the cushat croods
With wailfu’ cry!

Even winter bleak has charms to me,
When winds rave through the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree	45
Are hoary gray;
Or blinding drifts wild furious flee,
Darkening the day! * * * * *