Some said, 'twas war, some, famine,

And all, that other-minded men
Would get a precious

Proud Pallas sighed, "It will not do; Against the Muse I've sinned, oh!"

And her torn rhymes sent flying through

Olympus's back window.
Then, packing up a peplus clean,

She took the shortest path thence,
And opened, with a mind serene,
A Sunday school in Athens.

The verses? Some in ocean swilled,

Killed every fish that bit to 'em; Some Galen caught, and, when distilled,

Found morphine the residuum; But some that rotted on the earth Sprang up again in copies, And gave two strong narcotics birth,

WHEN chapman billies leave the street,

And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We thinkna on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
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.

This truth fand honest Tam O'

Shanter,

As he frae Ayr ae 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,

A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;

That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was nae sober;
That ilka melder, wi' the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That every naig was ca'd a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roaring fou
on;

That at the Lord's house, even on
Sunday,

Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till

Monday.

She prophesied that, late or soon, Thou would be found deep drowned in Doon:

Or catched wi' warlocks i' the mirk, By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.

Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,

To think how mony counsels sweet, How mony lengthened, sage advices, The husband frae the wife despises!

But to our tale: Ae market night, Tam had got planted unco right; Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely;

And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony; Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither; They had been fou for weeks thegither.

The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter;

And ay the ale was growing better: The landlady and Tam grew gracious,

Wi'

favors, secret, sweet, and precious:

The souter tauld his queerest stories; The landlord's laugh was ready cho

rus:

The storm without might rair and rustle,

Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man sae happy, E'en drowned himself amang the

nappy!

As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,

The minutes winged their way wi’ pleasure:

Kings may be blessed, but Tam was glorious,

O'er a' the ills o' life victorious! But pleasures are like poppies spread,

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;

Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white-then melts forever;

Or like the borealis race,

That flit ere you can point their place;

Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.

Nae man can tether time or tide; The hour approaches Tam maun ride;

That hour, o' night's black arch the

And past the birks and meikle-stane, Whare drunken Charlie brak's neckbane;

And through the whins, and by the cairn,

Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn:

And near the thorn, aboon the well, Whare Mungo's mither hanged hersel.

Before him Doon pours all his floods; The doubling storm roars through the woods;

The lightnings flash from pole to pole; Near and more near the thunders roll:

When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees,

Kirk Alloway seemed in a bleeze; Through ilka bore the beams were glancing;

And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn! What dangers thou canst make us scorn!

Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquebae, we'll face the Devil!
The swats sae reamed in Tammie's
noddle,

Fair play, he cared na deils a boddle.
But Maggie stood right sair aston-

ished,

Till, by the heel and hand admonished,

She ventured forward on the light;
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;
Nae cotillion brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and
reels,

Put life and mettle in their heels.
At winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o'
beast;

A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,

To gie them music was his charge: He screwed the pipes and gart them

By which heroic Tom was able
To note upon the haly table,
A murderer's banes in gibbet airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened
bairns:

A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' blude red
rusted;

Five scymitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter, which a babe had strangled;

A knife, a father's throat had mangled,

Whom his ain son o' life bereft.
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu',
Which even to name wad be unlaw-
fu'.

As Tammie glowered, amazed and curious,

The mirth and fun grew fast and furious:

The piper loud and louder blew;
The dancers quick and quicker flew;
They reeled, they set, they crossed,

they cleekit,

Till ilka carlin sweat and reekit, And coost her duddies to the wark, And linket at it in her sark!

Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been

queans,

A' plump and strapping in their teens;

Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen,

Been snaw-white seventeen-hunder linnen!

Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, That ance were plush, o' gude blue hair,

I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies,

For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies! But withered beldams, auld and droll,

Rigwoodie hags, wad spean a foal, Lowping and flinging on a crummock,

I wonder didna turn thy stomach. But Tam kend what was what fu'

brawlie,

"There was ae winsome wench and walie,"

That night enlisted in the core,
(Lang after kend on Carrick shore;
For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perished mony a bonnie boat,

And shook baith meikle corn and bear,

And kept the country-side in fear,)
Her cutty-sark, o' Paisley harn,
That, while a lassie, she had worn,
In longitude though sorely scanty,
It was her best and she was vaunt-
ie.

Ah! little kend thy reverend grannie,

That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,

Wi' twa pund Scots, ('twas a' her riches,)

Wad ever graced a dance o' witches! But here my muse her wing maun

cour;

Sic flights are far beyond her power; To sing how Nannie lap and flang (A souple jade she was, and strang), And how Tam stood, like ane bewitched,

And thought his very e'en enriched; Even Satan glowered, and fidged fu' fain,

And hotched and blew wi' might and main:

Till first ane caper, syne anither, Tam tint his reason a' thegither, And roars out, "Weel done, Cuttysark!"

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, When plundering herds assail their byke;

As open pussie's mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their

moon set,

O'er the roaring sea we flew; The cockle-shell our trusty bark, Our sails of the green sea-rue.

"And the bauld winds blew, and the fire-flauchts flew,

And the sea ran to the sky; And the thunder it growled, and the sea-dogs howled,

As we gaed scurrying by.

"And aye we mounted the sea-green hills,

Till we brushed through the clouds of heaven,

Then soused downright like the stern-shot light,

Fra the lift's blue casement driven.

We bored the breast of the bursting swale,

Or fluffed in the floating faem.

"And when to the Norroway shore

we wan,

We mounted our steeds of the wind, And we splashed the floode, and we darnit the wood,

And we left the shore behind.

"Fleet is the roe on the green Lommond,

And swift is the couryng grew; The rein-deer dun can eithly run, When the hounds and the horns

pursue.

"But neither the roe, nor the reindeer dun,

The hind nor the couryng grew, Could fly o'er mountain, moor, and dale,

As our braw steeds they flew.

"The dales were deep, and the Doffrins steep,

And we rose to the skies ee-bree: White, white was our road that was never trode,

O'er the snows of eternity.

"And when we came to the Lapland lone,

The fairies were all in array, For all the genii of the north Were keeping their holiday.

"The warlock men and the weird women,

And the fays of the wood and the steep,

And the phantom hunters all were there,

And the mermaids of the deep.

"And they washed us all with the witch-water,

Distilled frae the moorland dew, Till our beauty bloomed like the Lapland rose,

That wild in the foreste grew.".

"Ye lee, ye lee, ye ill woman,

Sae loud as I hear ye lee! For the worst-faured wyfe on the shores of Fyfe

Is comely compared wi' thee."