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| AULD comrade dear, and brither sinner, | |
| How’s a’ the folk about Glenconner? | |
| How do you this blae eastlin wind, | |
| That’s like to blaw a body blind? | |
| For me, my faculties are frozen, | 5 |
| My dearest member nearly dozen’d. | |
| I’ve sent you here, by Johnie Simson, | |
| Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on; | |
| Smith, wi’ his sympathetic feeling, | |
| An’ Reid, to common sense appealing. | 10 |
| Philosophers have fought and wrangled, | |
| An’ meikle Greek an’ Latin mangled, | |
| Till wi’ their logic-jargon tir’d, | |
| And in the depth of science mir’d, | |
| To common sense they now appeal, | 15 |
| What wives and wabsters see and feel. | |
| But, hark ye, friend! I charge you strictly, | |
| Peruse them, an’ return them quickly: | |
| For now I’m grown sae cursed douce | |
| I pray and ponder butt the house; | 20 |
| My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin’, | |
| Perusing Bunyan, Brown, an’ Boston, | |
| Till by an’ by, if I haud on, | |
| I’ll grunt a real gospel-groan: | |
| Already I begin to try it, | 25 |
| To cast my e’en up like a pyet, | |
| When by the gun she tumbles o’er | |
| Flutt’ring an’ gasping in her gore: | |
| Sae shortly you shall see me bright, | |
| A burning an’ a shining light. | 30 |
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| My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen, | |
| The ace an’ wale of honest men: | |
| When bending down wi’ auld grey hairs | |
| Beneath the load of years and cares, | |
| May He who made him still support him, | 35 |
| An’ views beyond the grave comfort him; | |
| His worthy fam’ly far and near, | |
| God bless them a’ wi’ grace and gear! | |
| |
| My auld schoolfellow, Preacher Willie, | |
| The manly tar, my mason-billie, | 40 |
| And Auchenbay, I wish him joy, | |
| If he’s a parent, lass or boy, | |
| May he be dad, and Meg the mither, | |
| Just five-and-forty years thegither! | |
| And no forgetting wabster Charlie, | 45 |
| I’m tauld he offers very fairly. | |
| An’ Lord, remember singing Sannock, | |
| Wi’ hale breeks, saxpence, an’ a bannock! | |
| And next, my auld acquaintance, Nancy, | |
| Since she is fitted to her fancy, | 50 |
| An’ her kind stars hae airted till her | |
| gA guid chiel wi’ a pickle siller. | |
| My kindest, best respects, I sen’ it, | |
| To cousin Kate, an’ sister Janet: | |
| Tell them, frae me, wi’ chiels be cautious, | 55 |
| For, faith, they’ll aiblins fin’ them fashious; | |
| To grant a heart is fairly civil, | |
| But to grant a maidenhead’s the devil. | |
| An’ lastly, Jamie, for yoursel, | |
| May guardian angels tak a spell, | 60 |
| An’ steer you seven miles south o’ hell: | |
| But first, before you see heaven’s glory, | |
| May ye get mony a merry story, | |
| Mony a laugh, and mony a drink, | |
| And aye eneugh o’ needfu’ clink. | 65 |
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| Now fare ye weel, an’ joy be wi’ you: | |
| For my sake, this I beg it o’ you, | |
| Assist poor Simson a’ ye can, | |
| Ye’ll fin; him just an honest man; | |
| Sae I conclude, and quat my chanter, | 70 |
Your’s, saint or sinner,
ROB THE RANTER. | |
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