To meet their dad with flichterin' noise and glee:
His wee-bit ingle blinkin' bonnilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil."
Cotter's Saturday Night.
Burns may have taken the thought from Gray, or some other English source. But he has not disgraced it by his mode of treating it.
Allen Ramsay, in his Gentle Shepherd, has a very pretty allusion to children, which I have not at hand to consult, but which concludes with,
"While all they ettle at, their greatest wis',