The Life of Mansie Wauch tailor in Dalkeith. D. M. Moir
The Chincough Pilgrimage,
Man hath a weary pilgrimage
As through the world he wends:
On every stage from youth to age
Still discontent attends.
With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,
And still remembers with a sigh
The days that are no more.
Southey.
XIV. My Lord’s Races,
Aff they a’ went galloping, galloping;
Legs and arms a’ walloping, walloping;
De’il take the hindmost, quo’ Duncan M’Calapin,
The Laird of Tillyben, Joe.
Old Song.
He went a little further,
And turn’d his head aside,
And just by Goodman Whitfield’s gate,
Oh there the mare he spied.
He ask’d her how she did,
She stared him in the face,
Then down she laid her head again—
She was in wretched case.
Old Poulter’s Mo.
XV. The Return,
That sweet home is there delight,
And thither they repair
Communion with their own to hold!
Peaceful as, at the fall of night,
Two little lambkins gliding white
Return unto the gentle air,
That sleeps within the fold.
Or like two birds to their lonely nest,
Or wearied waves to their bay of rest,
Or fleecy clouds when their race is run,
That hang in their own beauty blest,
’Mid the calm that sanctifies the west
Around the setting sun.
Wilson.
XVI. The Bloody Cartridge,
So stands the Thracian herdsman with his spear
Full in the gap, and hopes the hunted bear;
And hears him in the rustling wood, and sees
His course at distance by the bending trees;
And thinks—Here comes my mortal enemy,
And either he must fall in fight or I.
Dryden’s Palamon and Arcite.
Nay, never shake thy gory looks at me;
Thou canst not say I did it!
Macbeth.
XVII. My First and Last Play,
Pla. I’ faith I like the audience that frequenteth there With much applause: a man shall not be chokt With the stench of garlick, nor be pasted firm With the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer.
Bra. ’Tis a good gentle audience, and I hope The boys will come one day in great request.
Jack Drum’s Entertainment, 1601.
Out cam the gudeman, and laigh he louted;
Out cam the gudewife, and heigh she shouted;
And a the toun-neibours gather’d about it;
And there he lay, I trow.
The Cauldrife Wooer.
XVIII. The Barley Fever: and Rebuke,
Sages their solemn een may steek,
And raise a philosophic reek,
And, physically, causes seek,
In clime and season:
But tell me Whisky’s name in Greek, I’ll tell the reason.
Burns.
XIX. The Awful Night,
Ha!—’twas but a dream;
But then so terrible, it shakes my soul!
Cold drops of sweat hang on my trembling flesh;
My blood grows chilly, and I freeze with horror,
Richard the Third.
The Fire-king one day rather amorous felt;
He mounted his hot copper filly;
His breeches and boots were of tin, and the belt
Was made of cast-iron, for fear it should melt
With the heat of the copper colt’s belly.
Oh! then there was glitter and fire in each eye,
For two living coals were the symbols;
His teeth were calcined, and his tongue was so dry,
It rattled against them as though you should try
To play the piano on thimbles.
Rejected Addresses.
XX. Adventures in the Sporting Line,
A fig for them by law protected,
Liberty’s glorious feast;
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.
Jolly Beggars.
Wi’ cauk and keel I’ll win your bread,
And spindles and whorles for them wha need,
Whilk is a gentle trade indeed,
To carry the Gaberlunzie on.
I’ll bow my leg and crook my knee,
And draw a black clout owre my ee,
A cripple or blind they will ca’ me,
While we shall be merry and sing.
King James V.
XXI. Anent Mungo Glen,
“Earth to earth,” and “dust to dust,”
The solemn priest hath said,
So we lay the turf above thee now,
And we seal thy narrow bed;
But thy spirit, brother, soars away
Among the faithful blest,
Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.
Milman.
XXII. The June Jaunt,
The lapwing lilteth o’er the lea,
With nimble wing she sporteth;
By vows she’ll flee from tree to tree
Where Philomel resorteth:
By break of day, the lark can say,
I’ll bid you a good-morrow,
I’ll streik my wing, and mounting sing,
O’er Leader hauchs and Yarrow.
Nicol Burn, the Minstrel.
XXIII. Catching a Tartar,
Fr. Sol. O, prennez miséricorde! ayez pitié de moy!
Pist. Moy shall not serve, I will have forty moys! For I will fetch my rim out at thy throat, In drops of crimson blood.