Burns: They’ll come or not as it may be. You’ll not be the judge, minister, there’s hope in that. And the lasses are here, and a man’s heart beats, and you can’t frown us out of it, minister. Look at us, labouring and wearing ourselves and near starving often, and are we to take nothing that bright eyes and fond lips and white young arms may offer? Who talks of profaning, minister!
[He sings.]
There’s nought but care on ev’ry han’,
In every hour that passes, O:
What signifies the life o’ man,
An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O?
Green grow the rashes, O!
Green grow the rashes, O!
The sweetest hours that e’er I spend
Are spent amang the lasses, O.