The Poetry of Robert Burns Edited by William Ernest Henley and Thomas F. Henderson |
I. |
2. |
TO HUGH PARKER |
III. |
IV. |
The Poetry of Robert Burns | ||
116
TO HUGH PARKER
In this strange land, this uncouth clime,A land unknown to prose or rhyme;
Where words ne'er cros't the Muse's heckles,
Nor limpit in poetic shackles:
A land that Prose did never view it,
Except when drunk he stacher't thro' it:
Here, ambush'd by the chimla cheek,
Hid in an atmosphere of reek,
I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk,
I hear it—for in vain I leuk:
The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel
Enhuskèd by a fog infernal.
Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,
I sit and count my sins by chapters;
For life and spunk like ither Christians,
I'm dwindled down to mere existence;
Wi' nae converse but Gallowa' bodies,
Wi' nae kend face but Jenny Geddes.
Jenny, my Pegasean pride,
Dowie she saunters down Nithside,
And ay a westlin leuk she throws,
While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose!
117
Thou bure the Bard through many a shire?
At howes or hillocks never stumbled,
And late or early never grumbled?
O, had I power like inclination,
I'd heeze thee up a constellation!
To canter with the Sagitarre,
Or loup the Ecliptic like a bar,
Or turn the Pole like any arrow;
Or, when auld Phœbus bids good-morrow,
Down the Zodíac urge the race,
And cast dirt on his godship's face:
For I could lay my bread and kail
He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail!. . .
Wi' a' this care and a' this grief,
And sma', sma' prospect of relief,
And nought but peat reek i' my head,
How can I write what ye can read?—
Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o' June,
Ye'll find me in a better tune;
But till we meet and weet our whistle,
Tak this excuse for nae epistle.
Robert Burns.
The Poetry of Robert Burns | ||