AIR.

TUNE-Jolly Mortals, fill your Glasses.

See the smoking bowl before us,
Mark our jovial ragged ring!
Round and round take up the chorus,
And in raptures let us sing.

CHORUS.

A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest

What is title? what is treasure?
What is reputation's care?

If we lead a life of pleasure,
'Tis no matter how or where!
A fig, etc.

With the ready trick and fable,
Round we wander all the day;
And at night, in barn or stable,
Hug our doxies on the hay.
A fig, etc.

Does the train-attended carriage

Through the country lighter rove?

Does the sober bed of marriage
Witness brighter scenes of love?
A fig, etc.

Life is all a variorum,

We regard not how it goes; Let them cant about decorum Who have characters to lose. A fig, etc.

Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets!
Here's to all the wandering train!
Here's our ragged brats and callets!
One and all cry out · Amen!

A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!

Courts for cowards were erected,

trulls

Churches built to please the priest.1

1 "In one or two passages of the Jolly Beggars, the Muse has slightly trespassed on decorum, where, in the language of Scottish song

'High kilted was she,

As she gaed owre the lea.'

Something, however, is to be allowed to the nature of the subject, and something to the education of the poet; and if from veneration to the names of Swift and Dryden, we tolerate the grossness of the one and the indelicacy of the other, the respect due to that of Burns may surely claim indulgence for a few light strokes of broad humour."- SIR WALTER SCOTT.

TO JAMES SMITH.

"Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society!

I owe thee much!"- BLAIR.

DEAR Smith, the slee'est, paukie thief cunning

That e'er attempted stealth or rief,

Ye surely hae some warlock-breef

Owre human hearts;

robbery

spell

For ne'er a bosom yet was prief
Against your arts.

proof

For me, I swear by sun and moon,
And every star that blinks aboon,
Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoon
Just gaun to see you;

And every ither pair that's done,

Mair ta'en I'm wi' you.

That auld capricious carlin, Nature,
To mak amends for scrimpet stature,
She's turned you aff, a human creature
On her first plan;

And in her freaks, on every feature

She's wrote, the Man.

twinkles

stinted

Just now I've ta'en the fit o' rhyme,
My barmie noddle's working prime,
My fancy yerkit up sublime

Wi' hasty summon :

Hae ye a leisure moment's time,

To hear what's comin'?

yeasty

fermented

Some rhyme a neighbour's name to lash; Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu' cash; Some rhyme to court the country clash,

And raise a din;

For me, an aim I never fash

I rhyme for fun.

The star that rules my luckless lot,
Has fated me the russet coat,

And d-d my fortune to the groat;
But in requit,

Has blest me wi' a random shot
O' country wit.

This while my notion's ta'en a sklent,
To try my fate in guid black prent;
But still the mair I'm that way bent,
Something cries "Hoolie!

I red you, honest man, tak tent!
Ye'll shaw your folly.

There's ither poets much your betters, Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters,

gossip

care for

bent

Gently

warn

skilled

Hae thought they had insured their debtors
A' future ages;

Now moths deform, in shapeless tatters,
Their unknown pages."

Then farewell hopes o' laurel-boughs,
To garland my poetic brows!

Henceforth I'll rove where busy ploughs

Are whistling thrang,

thick

And teach the lanely heights and howes hollows My rustic sang.

I'll wander on, with tentless need
How never-halting moments speed,
Till fate shall snap the brittle thread;
Then, all unknown,

I'll lay me with the inglorious dead,
Forgot and gone!

But why o' death begin a tale?
Just now we're living sound and hale:
Then top and maintop crowd the sail,
Heave Care o'er side!

And large before Enjoyment's gale,

Let's tak the tide.

This life, sae far's I understand,
Is a' enchanted fairy-land,

Where Pleasure is the magic wand,

That, wielded right,