CXXXIII.
WILLIE WASTLE.
Tune—“The eight men of Moidart.”
[The person who is raised to the disagreeable elevation of heroine of this song, was, it is said, a farmer’s wife of the old school of domestic care and uncleanness, who lived nigh the poet, at Ellisland.]
I.
Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed,
The spot they call’d it Linkum-doddie.
Willie was a wabster guid,
Cou’d stown a clue wi’ onie bodie;
He had a wife was dour and din,
O Tinkler Madgie was her mither;
Sic a wife as Willie had,
I wad nae gie a button for her.
II.
She has an e’e—she has but ane,
The cat has twa the very colour;
Five rusty teeth, forbye a stump,
A clapper-tongue wad deave a miller:
A whiskin’ beard about her mou’,
Her nose and chin they threaten ither—
Sic a wife as Willie had,
I wad nae gie a button for her.
III.