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| THIS 1 wot ye all whom it concerns, | |
| I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns, | |
| October twenty-third, | |
| A ne’er-to-be-forgotten day, | |
| Sae far I sprackl’d up the brae, | 5 |
| I dinner’d wi’ a Lord. | |
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| I’ve been at drucken writers’ feasts, | |
| Nay, been bitch-fou ’mang godly priests— | |
| Wi’ rev’rence be it spoken!— | |
| I’ve even join’d the honour’d jorum, | 10 |
| When mighty Squireships of the quorum, | |
| Their hydra drouth did sloken. | |
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| But wi’ a Lord!—stand out my shin, | |
| A Lord—a Peer—an Earl’s son! | |
| Up higher yet, my bonnet | 15 |
| An’ sic a Lord!—lang Scoth ells twa, | |
| Our Peerage he o’erlooks them a’, | |
| As I look o’er my sonnet. | |
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| But O for Hogarth’s magic pow’r! | |
| To show Sir Bardie’s willyart glow’r, | 20 |
| An’ how he star’d and stammer’d, | |
| When, goavin, as if led wi’ branks, | |
| An’ stumpin on his ploughman shanks, | |
| He in the parlour hammer’d. | |
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| I sidying shelter’d in a nook, | 25 |
| An’ at his Lordship steal’t a look, | |
| Like some portentous omen; | |
| Except good sense and social glee, | |
| An’ (what surpris’d me) modesty, | |
| I markèd nought uncommon. | 30 |
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| I watch’d the symptoms o’ the Great, | |
| The gentle pride, the lordly state, | |
| The arrogant assuming; | |
| The fient a pride, nae pride had he, | |
| Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see, | 35 |
| Mair than an honest ploughman. | |
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| Then from his Lordship I shall learn, | |
| Henceforth to meet with unconcern | |
| One rank as weel’s another; | |
| Nae honest, worthy man need care | 40 |
| To meet with noble youthful Daer, | |
| For he but meets a brother. | |
