Elegy on Trottin' Nanny or, a threnody, written and prentit to immortalize the memory of Agnes Bertholet, alias Trottin' Nanny, message-carrier between St. Monance and Anstruther |
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PREFACE.
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 | Elegy on Trottin' Nanny |  |
1
PREFACE.
BY ANOTHER HAND.
[READER! the Author dis-na feign]
1
READER! the Author dis-na feign,Truth teems in his elegiac strain;
Nanny's no fable of the brain;
But Sketch'd from life,
A portrait, unadorn'd an' plain,
Of an auld Wife!
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Wae worth the day that saw her married!Nae dyvor bargain war miscarried!
Her jo but three nights wi' her tarried
To keep her cozie;
Yet ere he fled he fairly herried
Her weel-hain'd posie!
3
He was a swankie fair an' fat,An' Nans war faced than ony cat,
Her skin fu' crynt—her nose fu' flat,
Her wit but shallow;—
To Kirk he led her for a' that—
Fause fleechin fallow!
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4
That camscho face, I mind it weel,That form, bent 'neath an auld back-creel,
Fleet ferdie feet, condemn'd to feel
The Winter's cauld;—
That tongue unable to conceal
Was prone to scauld!
5
Tho' Nanny's phiz, alake-a-day!Seem'd rather made of bronze than clay,
Her heart was saft—ruth held the sway,
An' I ha'e seen
The milk of kindness drap away
Frae baith her een.
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Death stops the janglin' tongue o' strife,—Tho' Nanny's gansell ay was rife;
She's 'scap'd at last the plagues o' life,
An' ceased her trottin':—
The warst-fard wife in shire o' Fife
Lies dead and rotten!
December 1814.
| Elegy on Trottin' Nanny | |