November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh;[320-1]
The short’ning winter day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae[320-2] the pleugh;[320-3]
The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose:
The toil-worn cotter frae his labor goes,
This night his weekly moil[320-4] is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks,[320-5] and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o’er the moor, his course does hameward bend.
II
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree:
Th’ expectant wee-things, toddlin’ stacher[320-6] thro’
To meet their dad, wi’ flichterin’[320-7] noise an’ glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin’ bonnily,
His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie’s smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a’ his weary carking[320-8] cares beguile,
An’ makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.
III
Belyve,[321-9] the elder bairns come drappin’ in.
At service out, amang the farmers roun’;
Some ca’[321-10] the pleugh, some herd, some tentie[321-11] rin
A cannie[321-12] errand to a neebor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu’ bloom, love sparklin in her e’e,
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw[321-13] new gown,
Or deposit her sair-won[322-14] penny fee,
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
IV
Wi’ joy unfeign’d, brothers and sisters meet,
And each for other’s weelfare kindly spiers:[322-15]
The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnoticed fleet;
Each tells the uncos[322-16] that he sees or hears;
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view;
The mother, wi’ her needle an’ her shears,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new;[322-17]
The father mixes a’ wi’ admonition due.