The Complete Works. Robert Burns

a’ ye tak your place,

       Painch, tripe, or thairm:

       Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace

       As lang’s my arm.

      The groaning trencher there ye fill,

       Your hurdies like a distant hill,

       Your pin wad help to mend a mill

       In time o’ need,

       While thro’ your pores the dews distil

       Like amber bead.

      His knife see rustic-labour dight,

       An’ cut you up wi’ ready slight,

       Trenching your gushing entrails bright

       Like onie ditch;

       And then, O what a glorious sight,

       Warm-reekin, rich!

      Then horn for horn they stretch an’ strive,

       Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,

       ’Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve

       Are bent like drums;

       Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,

       Bethankit hums.

      Is there that o’er his French ragout,

       Or olio that wad staw a sow,

       Or fricassee wad mak her spew

       Wi’ perfect sconner,

       Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view

       On sic a dinner?

      Poor devil! see him owre his trash,

       As feckless as a wither’d rash,

       His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,

       His nieve a nit;

       Thro’ bloody flood or field to dash,

       O how unfit!

      But mark the rustic, haggis-fed,

       The trembling earth resounds his tread,

Clap in his walie nieve a blade, He’ll mak it whissle; An’ legs, an’ arms, an’ heads will sned, Like taps o’ thrissle.

      Ye pow’rs wha mak mankind your care,

       And dish them out their bill o’ fare,

       Auld Scotland wants nae stinking ware

       That jaups in luggies;

       But, if ye wish her gratefu’ pray’r,

       Gie her a Haggis!

IX.

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A PRAYER,

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      UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT ANGUISH.

      [“There was a certain period of my life,” says Burns, “that my spirit was broke by repeated losses and disasters, which threatened and indeed effected the ruin of my fortune. My body, too, was attacked by the most dreadful distemper, a hypochondria or confirmed melancholy. In this wretched state, the recollection of which makes me yet shudder, I hung my harp on the willow-trees, except in some lucid intervals, in one of which I composed the following.”]

      O Thou Great Being! what Thou art

       Surpasses me to know;

       Yet sure I am, that known to Thee

       Are all Thy works below.

      Thy creature here before Thee stands,

       All wretched and distrest;

       Yet sure those ills that wring my soul

       Obey Thy high behest.

      Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act

       From cruelty or wrath!

       O, free my weary eyes from tears,

       Or close them fast in death!

      But if I must afflicted be,

       To suit some wise design;

       Then, man my soul with firm resolves

       To bear and not repine!

X.

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A PRAYER

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      IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH.

      [I have heard the third verse of this very moving Prayer quoted by scrupulous men as a proof that the poet imputed his errors to the Being who had endowed him with wild and unruly passions. The meaning is very different: Burns felt the torrent-strength of passion overpowering his resolution, and trusted that God would be merciful to the errors of one on whom he had bestowed such o’ermastering gifts.]

      O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause

       Of all my hope and fear?

       In whose dread presence, ere an hour

       Perhaps I must appear!

      If I have wander’d in those paths

       Of life I ought to shun;

       As something, loudly, in my breast,

       Remonstrates I have done;

      Thou know’st that Thou hast formed me,

       With passions wild and strong;

       And list’ning to their witching voice

       Has often led me wrong.

      Where human weakness has come short,

       Or frailty stept aside,

       Do Thou, All-Good! for such thou art,

       In shades of darkness hide.

      Where with intention I have err’d,

       No other plea I have,

       But, Thou art good; and goodness still

       Delighteth to forgive.

XI.

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STANZAS

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      ON THE SAME OCCASION.

      [These verses the poet, in his common-place book, calls “Misgivings in the Hour of Despondency and Prospect of Death.” He elsewhere says they were composed when fainting-fits and other alarming symptoms of a pleurisy, or some other dangerous disorder, first put nature on the alarm.]

      Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?

       How I so found it full of pleasing charms?

       Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between: