The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots

Produced by Richard Bruce Gordon
NOTE The Lum Hat wantin' the Croon is published, with music, by Mr. R. W. Pentland, Edinburgh, and it also appears in The British Students' Song Book along with The Pawky Duke. This latter first appeared in St. Andrews University Bazaar Book, and is included in Seekers after a City. Macfadden and Macfee was contributed to Aberdeen University Alma Mater, and has been reprinted in Alma Mater Anthology. Various of the other verses have appeared in The Edinburgh Medical Journal and The Caledonian Medical Journal. D. R.
Not mine to let the hair grow long, and talk In raptured accents of the Higher Things, Of all the purple Polyanthus bears, And beating wings. (Oh no! Nothing of that sort!)
Ne'er have I languished on the lower slopes Of sweet Parnassus in the thrice-dead years, Chanting in fathoms of the fathomless To kindred ears. (Certainly not! No time for it!)
Nor mine the gift-O, gilded gift and grand! To linger near the murmur of the Nine, To mouth in music of the meaningless, Nay! Never mine! (That's so! Quite!)
But here to han'le the auld crambo-clink On hame-owre themes weel-kent by Galen's tribe, Regairdless o' what ither fowk may think Or ca' the scribe! (Ay! That's aboot it noo!)
O' a' the jobs that sweat the sark Gie me a kintra doctor's wark, Ye ca' awa' frae dawn till dark, Whate'er the weather be, O!
Some tinkler wife is in the strae, Your boots are owre the taps wi' clay Through wadin' bog an' sklimmin' brae The besom for to see, O!
Ye ken auld Jock o' Windybarns? The bull had near ca'ed oot his harns, His een were blinkin' fu' o' starns, An' doon they ran for me, O!
There's ae guid wife, we're weel acquaint, Nae trouble's kent but what she's taen't, Yet aye she finds some new complaint, O' which I hae the key, O!
She's had some unco queer mishaps, Wi' nervish wind and clean collapse, An' naethin' does her guid but draps- Guid draps o' barley-bree, O!
I wouldna care a docken blade, Gin her accoont she ever paid, But while she gi'es me a' her trade, There's ne'er a word o' fee, O!