“I’ll laugh an’ sing, an’ shake my leg,
As lang’s I dow.”
On Thursday morning, if you can muster as much self-denial as to be out of bed about seven o’clock, I shall see you, as I ride through to Cumnock. After all, Heaven bless the sex! I feel there is still happiness for me among them:
“O woman, lovely woman! Heaven design’d you
To temper man!—we had been brutes without you.”[159]
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[159] Otway. Venice Preserved.
XIX.
TO MR. JOHN KENNEDY.
[Burns was busy in a two-fold sense at present: he was seeking patrons in every quarter for his contemplated volume, and was composing for it some of his most exquisite poetry.]
Mossgiel, 16 May, 1796.