Of brotherhood is severed as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
ROBERT BURNS.
TAM O'SHANTER.
When chapman billies[150] leave the street,
And drouthy[151] neebors neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late
An' folk begin to tak the gate;[152]
While we sit bousing at the nappy,[153]
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
As he frae Ayr ae[158] night did canter,
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonnie lasses.)
O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou wast a skellum,[159]
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou wasna sober;
That ilka melder,[162] wi' the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That every naig was ca'd[163] a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on;
That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday,
Thou drank wi' Kirten Jean till Monday.
She prophesy'd that, late or soon,
Thou would be found deep drowned in Doon,
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,[164]
To think how monie counsels sweet,
How monie lengthened, sage advices
The husband frae the wife despises! . .
Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun[165] ride;
That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic[166] a night he taks the road in,
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed;
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed:
That night, a child might understand,
The Deil had business on his hand.
(Mounted on his gray mare Maggie, Tarn pursues his homeward way in safety till, reaching Kirk-Alloway, he sees the windows in a blaze, and, looking in, beholds a dance of witches, with Old Nick playing the fiddle. Most of the witches are any thing but inviting, but there is one winsome wench, called Nannie, who dances in a "cutty-sark," or short smock.)
But here my muse her wing maun cower;
Sic flights are far beyond her power;
To sing how Nannie lap and flang[167]
(A souple jade she was, and strang),
And how Tam stood like are bewitched,
And thought his very e'en enriched.
Even Satan glowered and fidged fu' fain,[168]
And hotch'd[169] and blew wi' might and main;
Till first ae caper, syne[170] anither,
Tam tint[171] his reason a' thegither,
And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!"
And in an instant all was dark:
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,[172]
When plundering herds assail their byke;[173]
As open pussie's mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd
When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud.
So Maggie runs, the witches follow
Wi' monie an eldritch skreech and hollow,
Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin'![174]
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin':
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman.
Now do thy speedy utmost Meg,
And win the key-stane of the brig;[175]
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross,
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient[176] a tale she had to shake,
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie pressed,
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;[177]
But little wist she Maggie's mettle—
Ae spring brought aff her master hale,[178]
But left behind her ain gray tail;
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.
[150] Peddler fellows.
[151] Thirsty.
[152] Road home.
[153] Ale.
[154] Full.
[155] Uncommonly.
[156] Swamps.
[157] Gaps in a hedge.
[158] One.
[159] Good-for-nothing.
[160] Babbling.
[161] Gossip.
[162] Every time corn was sent to the mill.
[163] Driven.
[164] Makes me weep.
[165] Must.
[166] Such.
[167] Leaped and flung.
[168] Stared and fidgeted with eagerness.
[169] Hitched about.
[170] Then.
[171] Lost.
[172] Fuss.
[173] Hive.
[174] Deserts.
[175] Bridge.
[176] Devil.
[177] Aim.
[178] Whole.
[179] Hag.
[180] Caught.
JOHN ANDERSON.
John Anderson, my jo,[181] John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;[182]
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snow;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.
John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither;
And monie a canty[183] day, John,
We've had wi' are anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.
[181] Sweetheart.
[182] Smooth
[183] Merry.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
SONNET.
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers—
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL.
[From Ode on the Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.]
Our birth is but a sleep, and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy:
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy;
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy.
The youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day....
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benedictions: not, indeed,
For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast—
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts, before which our mortal nature
Did tremble, like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence: truths that wake
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,
Nor man nor boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy.
Hence, in a season of calm weather,