Duan First

The sun had closed the winter day, The curlers quat their roarin’ play, An’ hunger’d maukin taen her way To kail-yards green, While faithless snaws ilk step betray Where she has been.

The thresher’s weary flingin’-tree The lee-lang day had tirèd me: And when the day had clos’d his e’e, Far i’ the west, Ben i’ the spence, right pensivelie, I gaed to rest.

There lanely by the ingle-cheek I sat and eyed the spewing reek, That fill’d, wi’ hoast-provoking smeek The auld clay biggin’; An’ heard the restless rattons squeak About the riggin’.

All in this mottie misty clime, I backward mused on wasted time, How I had spent my youthfu’ prime, An’ done nae-thing, But stringin’ blethers up in rhyme, For fools to sing.

Had I to guid advice but harkit, I might, by this, hae led a market, Or strutted in a bank, and clarkit My cash-account: While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit, Is a’ th’ amount.

I started, mutt’ring ‘blockhead! coof!’ And heaved on high my waukit loof, To swear by a’ yon starry roof, Or some rash aith, That I, henceforth, would be rhyme-proof Till my last breath—

When click! the string the snick did draw; An’ jee! the door gaed to the wa’; And by my ingle-lowe I saw, Now bleezin’ bright, A tight outlandish hizzie, braw, Come full in sight.

Ye need na doubt I held my whisht; The infant aith, half-form’d, was crusht; I glowr’d as eerie’s I’d been dusht In some wild glen; When sweet, like modest worth, she blusht, An’ steppèd ben.

Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs Were twisted, gracefu’, round her brows; I took her for some Scottish Muse By that same token; And come to stop these reckless vows, Would soon been broken.

A hare-brain’d, sentimental trace, Was strongly markèd in her face; A wildly-witty rustic grace Shone full upon her; Her eye, ev’n turn’d on empty space, Beam’d keen with honour.

Down flow’d her robe, a tartan sheen, Till half a leg was scrimply seen; An’ such a leg! my bonnie Jean Could only peer it; Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean, Nane else came near it.

Her mantle large, of greenish hue, My gazing wonder chiefly drew; Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw A lustre grand; And seem’d to my astonish’d view A well-known land.

Here rivers in the sea were lost; There mountains to the skies were tost: Here tumbling billows mark’d the coast With surging foam; There, distant shone Art’s lofty boast, The lordly dome.

Here Doon pour’d down his far-fetch’d floods; There well-fed Irwine stately thuds; Auld hermit Ayr staw thro’ his woods, On to the shore; And many a lesser torrent scuds, With seeming roar.

Low in a sandy valley spread, An ancient borough rear’d her head; Still, as in Scottish story read, She boasts a race To ev’ry nobler virtue bred, And polish’d grace.

By stately tower or palace fair, Or ruins pendent in the air, Bold stems of heroes, here and there, I could discern; Some seem’d to muse, some seem’d to dare, With feature stern.

My heart did glowing transport feel, To see a race heroic wheel, And brandish round the deep-dyed steel In sturdy blows; While back-recoiling seem’d to reel Their Suthron foes.

His Country’s Saviour, mark him well! Bold Richardton’s heroic swell; The Chief—on Sark who glorious fell, In high command; And he whom ruthless fates expel His native land.

There, where a sceptred Pictish shade Stalk’d round his ashes lowly laid, I mark’d a martial race, pourtray’d In colours strong; Bold, soldier-featured, undismay’d They strode along.