TO WILLIAM SIMPSON, OCHILTREE. May, 1785. I GAT your letter, winsome Willie; An' unco vain, Should I believe, my coaxin billie, Your flatterin strain. But I'se believe ye kindly meant it, On my poor Musie; Tho' in sic phraisin terms ye've penn'd it, I scarce excuse ye. My senses wad be in a creel, Wi' Allan, or wi' Gilbertfield, The braes o' fame; Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel, A deathless name! (0 Furgusson! thy glorious parts Ill suited law's dry, musty arts! My curse upon your whunstane hearts, Ye Enbrugh Gentry! The tythe o' what ye waste at cartes, Wad stow'd his pantry!) Yet when a tale comes i' my head, As whyles they're like to be my deed, (0 sad disease!) I kittle up my rustic reed; It gies me ease. Auld Coila now may fidge fu' fain, She's gotten Poets o' her ain, Chiels wha their chanters winna hain, But tune their lays, Till echoes a' resound again Her weel-sung praise. Nae poet thought her worth his while Beside New Holland, Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil Besouth Magellan. Ramsay an' famous Fergusson Yarrow an' Tweed, to monie a tune, While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an' Doon, Nae body sings. Th' Ilissus, Tiber, Thames, an' Seine, An' cock your crest, We'll gar our streams an' burnies shine Up wi' the best. We'll sing auld Coila's plains an' fells, Aft bure the gree, as story tells, Frae southron billies. At Wallace' name what Scottish blood Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod, O, sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods, Their loves enjoy, While thro' the braes the cushat croods Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree Are hoary gray; Or blinding drifts wild furious flee, Dark'ning the day! O Nature! a' thy shews an' forms Or winter howls, in gusty storms, The lang dark night! The Muse, nae poet ever fand her, O sweet! to stray an' pensive ponder The warly race may drudge an' drive, And I, wi' pleasure, Shall let the busy grumbling hive 6 Bum owre their treasure. Fareweel, my rhyme-composing brither!' We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither: Now let us lay our heads thegither, In love fraternal: May Envy wallop in a tether, Black fiend, infernal! While highlandmen hate tolls an' taxes; While moorlan' herds like guid fat braxies; While terra firma, on her axis Diurnal turns, Count on a friend, in faith an' practice, In Robert Burns. POSTSCRIPT. My memory's no worth a preen; Ye bade me write you what they mean 'Bout which our herds sae aft hae been In days when mankind were but callans They took nae pains their speech to balance, But spak their thoughts in plain, braid Lallans, In thae auld times, they thought the moon, Wore by degrees, till her last roon, Gaed past their viewing, An' shortly after she was done, They gat a new ane. This past for certain, undisputed; An' muckle din there was about it, |