"That mine is not a longer letter,
The cause is not the want of matter,—
Of that there's plenty, worse or better;
But like a mill
Whose stream beats back with surplus water,
The wheel stands still."
Something of the humor of Burns gleams out occasionally from the sober decorum of his verses. In an epistle to his friend Betton, high sheriff of the county, who had sent to him for a peck of seed corn, he says:—
"Soon plantin' time will come again,
Syne may the heavens gie us rain,
An' shining heat to bless ilk plain
An' fertile hill,
An' gar the loads o' yellow grain,
Our garrets fill.
"As long as I has food and clothing,
An' still am hale and fier and breathing,
Ye 's get the corn—and may be aething
Ye'll do for me;
(Though God forbid)—hang me for naething
An' lose your fee."
And on receiving a copy of some verses written by a lady, he talks in a sad way for a Presbyterian deacon:—
"Were she some Aborigine squaw,
Wha sings so sweet by nature's law,
I'd meet her in a hazle shaw,
Or some green loany,
And make her tawny phiz and 'a
My welcome crony."
The practical philosophy of the stout, jovial rhymer was but little affected by the sour-featured asceticism of the elder. He says:—
"We'll eat and drink, and cheerful take
Our portions for the Donor's sake,
For thus the Word of Wisdom spake—
Man can't do better;
Nor can we by our labors make
The Lord our debtor!"
A quaintly characteristic correspondence in rhyme between the Deacon and Parson McGregore, evidently "birds o' ane feather," is still in existence. The minister, in acknowledging the epistle of his old friend, commences his reply as follows:—
"Did e'er a cuif tak' up a quill,
Wha ne'er did aught that he did well,
To gar the muses rant and reel,
An' flaunt and swagger,
Nae doubt ye 'll say 't is that daft chiel
Old Dite McGregore!"