 | The Poetry of Robert Burns |  |
LINES ON MEETING WITH LORD DAER
I
This wot ye all whom it concerns:I, Rhymer Rab, alias Burns,
October twenty-third,
A ne'er-to-be-forgotten day,
Sae far I sprachl'd up the brae
I dinner'd wi' a Lord.
II
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 honor'd jorum,
When mighty Squireships o' the Quorum
Their hydra drouth did sloken.
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III
But wi' a Lord!—stand out my shin!A Lord, a Peer, an Earl's son!—
Up higher yet, my bonnet!
An' sic a Lord!—lang Scotch ell twa
Our Peerage he looks o'er them a',
As I look o'er my sonnet.
IV
But O, for Hogarth's magic pow'rTo show Sir Bardie's willyart glow'r,
An' how he star'd an' stammer'd,
When, goavin's he'd been led wi' branks,
An' stumpin on his ploughman shanks,
He in the parlour hammer'd!
V
To meet good Stewart little pain is,Or Scotia's sacred Demosthénes:
Thinks I: ‘They are but men’!
But ‘Burns’!—‘My Lord’!—Good God! I doited,
My knees on ane anither knoited
As faultering I gaed ben.
VI
I sidling shelter'd in a neuk,An' at his Lordship staw a leuk,
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Except good sense and social glee
An' (what surpris'd me) modesty,
I markèd nought uncommon.
VII
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,
Mair than an honest ploughman!
VIII
Then from his Lordship I shall learnHenceforth to meet with unconcern
One rank as well's another;
Nae honest, worthy man need care
To meet with noble youthfu' Daer,
For he but meets a brother.
| The Poetry of Robert Burns | |