[12] A street so called, which faces the tent in Mauchline.
[13] Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
XXI.
THE ORDINATION.
“For sense they little owe to frugal heav’n—
To please the mob they hide the little giv’n.”
[This sarcastic sally was written on the admission of Mr. Mackinlay, as one of the ministers to the Laigh, or parochial Kirk of Kilmarnock, on the 6th of April, 1786. That reverend person was an Auld Light professor, and his ordination incensed all the New Lights, hence the bitter levity of the poem. These dissensions have long since past away: Mackinlay, a pious and kind-hearted sincere man, lived down all the personalities of the satire, and though unwelcome at first, he soon learned to regard them only as a proof of the powers of the poet.]
Kilmarnock wabsters fidge an’ claw,
An’ pour your creeshie nations;
An’ ye wha leather rax an’ draw,
Of a’ denominations,
Swith to the Laigh Kirk, ane an’ a’,
An’ there tak up your stations;
Then aff to Begbie’s in a raw,
An’ pour divine libations
For joy this day.
Curst Common-Sense, that imp o’ hell,
Cam in wi’ Maggie Lauder;[14]
But Oliphant aft made her yell,
An’ Russell sair misca’d her;
This day Mackinlay taks the flail,
And he’s the boy will blaud her!
He’ll clap a shangan on her tail,
An’ set the bairns to daud her
Wi’ dirt this day.
Mak haste an’ turn King David owre,
An’ lilt wi’ holy clangor;
O’ double verse come gie us four,
An’ skirl up the Bangor:
This day the Kirk kicks up a stoure,
Nae mair the knaves shall wrang her,
For Heresy is in her pow’r,
And gloriously she’ll whang her
Wi’ pith this day.
Come, let a proper text be read,
An’ touch it aff wi’ vigour,
How graceless Ham[15] leugh at his dad,
Which made Canaan a niger;
Or Phineas[16] drove the murdering blade,
Wi’ wh-re-abhorring rigour;
Or Zipporah,[17] the scauldin’ jad,
Was like a bluidy tiger
I’ th’ inn that day.