HA! whare ye gaun, ye crawlin’ ferlie? | |
| Your impudence protects you sairly: | |
| I canna say but ye strunt rarely | |
| Owre gauze an’ lace; | |
| Though, faith! I fear ye dine but sparely | 5 |
| On sic a place. | |
| |
| Ye ugly, creepin’, blastit wonner, | |
| Detested, shunned by saunt an’ sinner, | |
| How dare you set your fit upon her, | |
| Sae fine a lady? | 10 |
| Gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner | |
| On some poor body. | |
| |
| Swith, in some beggar’s haffet squattle; | |
| There ye may creep and sprawl and sprattle | |
| Wi’ ither kindred, jumping cattle, | 15 |
| In shoals and nations: | |
| Whare horn nor bane ne’er daur unsettle | |
| Your thick plantations. | |
| |
| Now baud you there, ye’re out o’ sight, | |
| Below the fatt’rels, snug an’ tight; | 20 |
| Na, faith, ye yet! ye ’ll no be right | |
| Till ye ’ve got on it, | |
| The very tapmost tow’ring height | |
| O’ Miss’s bonnet. | |
| |
| My sooth; right bauld ye set your nose out, | 25 |
| As plump and gray as ony grozet; | |
| O for some rank, mercurial rozet, | |
| Or fell, red smeddum! | |
| I ’d gie you sic a hearty dose o’t, | |
| Wad dress your droddum! | 30 |
| |
| I wad na been surprised to spy | |
| You on an auld wife’s flannen toy; | |
| Or aiblins some bit duddie boy, | |
| On ’s wyliecoat; | |
| But Miss’s fine Lunardi, fie! | 35 |
| How daur ye do ’t? | |
| |
| O Jenny, dinna toss your head, | |
| An’ set your beauties a’ abread! | |
| Ye little ken what cursèd speed | |
| The blastie ’s makin’! | 40 |
| Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread, | |
| Are notice takin’! | |
| |
| O wad some power the giftie gie us | |
| To see oursel’s as others see us! | |
| It wad frae monie a blunder free us, | 45 |
| And foolish notion: | |
| What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us, | |
| And ev’n devotion! | |
| |
