VII.
ON A WAG IN MAUCHLINE.
[This laborious and useful wag was the “Dear Smith, thou sleest pawkie thief,” of one of the poet’s finest epistles: he died in the West Indies.]
Lament him, Mauchline husbands a’,
He aften did assist ye;
For had ye staid whole weeks awa,
Your wives they ne’er had missed ye.
Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye press
To school in bands thegither,
O tread ye lightly on his grass,—
Perhaps he was your father.
VIII.
ON A CELEBRATED RULING ELDER.
[Souter Hood obtained the distinction of this Epigram by his impertinent inquiries into what he called the moral delinquencies of Burns.]
Here souter Hood in death does sleep;—
To h—ll, if he’s gane thither,
Satan, gie him thy gear to keep,
He’ll haud it weel thegither.