For you, no bred to barn and byre,
Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre,
Thanks to you for your line:
The marled plaid ye kindly spare,
By me should gratefully be ware;
’Twad please me to the nine.
I’d be mair vauntie o’ my hap,
Douce hingin’ owre my curple
Than ony ermine ever lap,
Or proud imperial purple.
Fareweel then, lang heel then,
An’ plenty be your fa’;
May losses and crosses
Ne’er at your hallan ca’.
LXXXIII.
EPISTLE TO WILLIAM CREECH.
[A storm of rain detained Burns one day, during his border tour, at Selkirk, and he employed his time in writing this characteristic epistle to Creech, his bookseller. Creech was a person of education and taste; he was not only the most popular publisher in the north, but he was intimate with almost all the distinguished men who, in those days, adorned Scottish literature. But though a joyous man, a lover of sociality, and the keeper of a good table, he was close and parsimonious, and loved to hold money to the last moment that the law allowed.]
Selkirk, 13 May, 1787.
Auld chukie Reekie’s[69] sair distrest,
Down droops her ance weel-burnisht crest,
Nae joy her bonnie buskit nest
Can yield ava,
Her darling bird that she lo’es best,
Willie’s awa!
O Willie was a witty wight,
And had o’ things an unco slight;
Auld Reekie ay he keepit tight,
An’ trig an’ braw:
But now they’ll busk her like a fright,
Willie’s awa!
The stiffest o’ them a’ he bow’d;
The bauldest o’ them a’ he cow’d;
They durst nae mair than he allow’d,
That was a law;
We’ve lost a birkie weel worth gowd,
Willie’s awa!
Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks, and fools,
Frae colleges and boarding-schools,
May sprout like simmer puddock stools
In glen or shaw;
He wha could brush them down to mools,
Willie’s awa!