It was a' for our Rightfu' King.

It was a' for our rightfu' King

We left fair Scotland's strand;

It was a' for our rightfu' King,
We e'er saw Irish land,

My dear

We e'er saw Irish land.

In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin!
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane of the brig;
There, at them thou thy tail may toss,
A runnin stream they dare na cross!
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake;
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie's mettle!
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain grey tail :
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man, and mother's son, take heed:
Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd,
Or cutty sarks run in your mind,
Think! ye may buy the joys o'er dear:
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare.

Written in 1790 for Grose's Antiquities of Scotland; so at least Captain Grose claimed. Alloway is Burns's birthplace, and the ruin remains. Tam o' Shanter has been identified with one Douglas Graham, who was a farmer at Shanter in Carrick; Souter Johnie with John Davidson, a shoemaker in Kirkoswald. The two were boon companions in Ayr change-houses. Mrs Burns is alleged to have testified that the poem was written in a single day. Burns, in a letter to Mrs Dunlop of April 1791, described it half-jocularly as his 'standard performance in the poetical line,' and as showing 'a force of genius and a finishing polish that I despair of ever excelling.'

And gae his bridle reins a shake,

With adieu for evermore,

The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, The birds sang love on every spray, Till too, too soon, the glowing west Proclaim'd the speed of winged day.

Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, And fondly broods with miser-care; Time but th' impression stronger makes,

As streams their channels deeper wear. O Mary, dear departed Shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest? See'st thou thy Lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

Described by Burns in a letter of 8th November 1789 as 'made the other day,' and commonly believed to have been addressed to the 'dear, departed shade' of Mary Campbell on the anniversary of her death, which occurred in October 1786.

Ode, Sacred to the Memory of Mrs Oswald of
Auchencruive.

Dweller in yon dungeon dark,
Hangman of creation, mark!
Who in widow-weeds appears,
Laden with unhonoured years,
Noosing with care a bursting purse,
Baited with many a deadly curse?

Strophe.

View the wither'd beldam's face-
Can thy keen inspection trace

Aught of Humanity's sweet, melting grace?
Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows-

Pity's flood there never rose.

See those hands, ne'er stretch'd to save,
Hands that took, but never gave.
Keeper of Mammon's iron chest,

Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest

She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!

Antistrophe.

Plunderer of Armies! lift thine eyes
(A while forbear, ye torturing fiends),

Seest thou whose step, unwilling, hither bends?
No fallen angel, hurl'd from upper skies!

'Tis thy trusty, quondam Mate, Doom'd to share thy fiery fate

She, tardy, hell-ward plies.

Epode.

And are they of no more avail,
Ten thousand glittering pounds a-year?
In other worlds can Mammon fail,
Omnipotent as he is here?

O, bitter mockery of the pompous bier!

While down the wretched vital part is driv'n, The cave-lodg'd beggar, with a conscience clear, Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heav'n. Written one night in January 1789, when the poet was driven out of a comfortable inn at Sanquhar into a night of 'bitter frost, howling hills and icy cataracts' by the funeral train of Mrs Oswald, daughter of a rich Jamaica merchant and widow of Richard Oswald, a Caithness man who made a fortune as a London merchant and as an army contractor ('plunderer of armies) in the Seven Years' War, but who earned a better character than Burns gave him by the services he rendered in arranging, on behalf of the Shelburne Ministry, the treaty which recognised the independence of the American Colonies.

She was nae get o' moorlan tips,
Wi' tawted ket, an' hairy hips;
For her forbears were brought in ships,
Frae yont the Tweed:

A bonier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips
Than Mailie's, dead.

Wae worth that man wha first did shape
That vile, wanchancie thing-a rape!
It maks guid fellows girn an' gape,
Wi' chokin dread;

An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape
For Mailie dead.

O, a' ye bards on bonie Doon!
An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune!
Come, join the melancholious croon
O' Robin's reed !

His heart will never get aboon-
His Mailie's dead!

roll

child-tups matted fleece

ancestors

t'other side fleece-shears

Yet I am here, a chosen sample,

To show Thy grace is great and ample;
I'm here, a pillar o' Thy temple,
Strong as a rock;

A guide, a ruler, and example
To a' Thy flock!

O Lord, Thou kens what zeal I bear,
When drinkers drink, an' swearers swear,
An' singin there, an' dancin here,
Wi' great and sma';

For I am keepit by Thy fear,
Free frae them a'.

But yet, O Lord, confess I must,
At times I'm fash'd wi' fleshly lust;
An' sometimes too, in warldly trust,
Vile Self gets in;

But Thou remembers we are dust,
Defiled wi' sin.

Thy pardon I sincerely beg:

Wi' great an' sma',

Frae God's ain Priest the people's hearts He steals awa.

And when we chasten'd him therefore, Thou kens how he bred sic a splore, And set the warld in a roar

O' laughin at us :

Curse Thou his basket and his store,
Kail and potatoes!

Lord, hear my earnest cry and pray'r
Against that Presbyt'ry of Ayr!

Thy strong right hand, Lord, mak it bare
Upo' their heads!

Lord, visit them, an' dinna spare,
For their misdeeds!

O Lord, my God! that glib-tongu'd Aiken,
My vera heart and flesh are quakin

To think how we stood sweatin, shakin,
An' pish'd wi' dread,

While he, wi' hingin lip an' snakin,

Held up his head.

Lord, in Thy day o' vengeance try him! Lord, visit them wha did employ him! And pass not in Thy mercy by them, Nor hear their pray'r,

But for Thy people's sake destroy them, An' dinna spare !

But, Lord, remember me and mine

Wi' mercies temporal and divine,
That I for grace and gear may shine,
Excell'd by nane!

And a' the glory shall be Thine,

Amen! Amen!

row

do not

sneering

This satire on election and other Calvinistic doctrines was thus annotated by Burns: Holy Willie [William Fisher] was a rather oldish bachelor elder, in the parish of Mauchline, and much and justly famed for that polemical chattering which ends in tippling orthodoxy, and for that spiritualised bawdry which refines to liquorish devotion. In a sessional process with a gentleman of Mauchline-a Mr Gavin Hamilton-Holy Willie and his priest, Father Auld, after full hearing in the presbytery of Ayr, came off but second best; owing partly to the oratorical powers of Mr Robert Aiken, Mr Hamilton's counsel, but chiefly to Mr Hamilton's being one of the most irreproachable and truly respectable characters in the country. On losing his process, the Muse overheard him at his devotions, as follows.' The 'sessional process' occurred in 1785, Hamilton's offence being neglect of ordinances and violation of the Sabbath. Doubtless Burns believed too much evil of Fisher.

To a Mouse, on turning her up in her nest with the plough, November 1785.

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie !
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle!

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion
An' fellow mortal!

sleek

hurrying haste

loath plough-staff

Green grow the rashes, O;

The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,
Are spent among the lasses, O.

There's nought but care on ev'ry han',
In every hour that passes, O:
What signifies the life o' man,

An' 'twere na for the lasses, O?

The war'ly race may riches chase,

An' riches still may fly them, O;
An' tho' at last they catch them fast,
Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O.

But gie me a cannie hour at e'en,
My arms about my dearie, O,

An' war'ly cares, an' war'ly men,
May a' gae tapsalteerie, O!

rushes

If it were not worldly

quiet

topsy-turvy

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
The snawie bosom sun-ward spread,

Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid,

Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!

By love's simplicity betray'd,

And guileless trust,

Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid
Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple Bard,

On Life's rough ocean luckless starr'd! Unskilful he to note the card

Of prudent Lore,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er!

Such fate to suffering Worth is giv'n,
Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,
By human pride or cunning driv'n

To mis'ry's brink:

Till, wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,

He, ruin'd, sink!

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine-no distant date; Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, Full on thy bloom,

Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight Shall be thy doom!

M'Pherson's Farewell.

Chorus-Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,

Sae dauntingly gaed he;

He play'd a spring, and danc'd it round
Below the gallows-tree.

Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong,

The wretch's destinie! M'Pherson's time will not be long On yonder gallows-tree.

O, what is death but parting breath?

On many a bloody plain

I've dar'd his face, and in this place

I scorn him yet again!

Untie these bands from off my hands,
And bring to me my sword;
And there's no a man in all Scotland
But I'll brave him at a word.

I've liv'd a life of sturt and strife; I die by treacherie :

It burns my heart I must depart, And not avengèd be.

Now farewell, light, thou sunshine bright, And all beneath the sky!

May coward shame disdain his name,

The wretch that dares not die !

trouble

For a' that, and a' that,

His ribband, star, and a' that; The man of independent mind,

He looks and laughs at a' that. A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might—

Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, and a' that,

Their dignities, and a' that;
The pith o' sense and pride o' worth
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,—

above

must not-claim

corps

lawless; vagrant

orgie

spare rags

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree!

And my fause luver staw my rose false lover stole
But ah! he left the thorn wi' me.

Written for the Musical Museum, and published in vol. iv., 1792. It is the best of four sets of verses on the river Doon.

Ae night at e'en a merry core

O' randie, gangrel bodies In Poosie-Nansie's held the splore, To drink their orra duddies: Wi' quaffing and laughing They ranted an' they sang, Wi' jumping an' thumping The vera girdle rang.

First, niest the fire, in auld red rags,
Ane sat, weel brac'd wi' mealy bags,

And knapsack a' in order;
His doxy lay within his arm;
Wi' usquebae an' blankets warm

She blinket on her sodger :
An' ay he gies the tozie drab

The tither skelpin kiss,
While she held up her greedy gab
Just like an aumous dish:

baking-plate

next

sweetheart whisky leered

gives-tipsy

another-sounding

Ilk smack still did crack still Like onie cadger's whip; Then swaggering an' staggering, He roared this ditty up :

AIR.

TUNE-Soldier's Joy.

I am a son of Mars who have been in many wars,

mouth

alms

Every

hawker's

And show my cuts and scars wherever I come :
This here was for a wench, and that other in a trench,
When welcoming the French at the sound of the drum,

Lal de daudle, &c.