To W. Simpson, 1785

I gat your letter, winsome Willie; Wi’ gratefu’ heart I thank you brawlie; Tho’ I maun say’t, I wad be silly, An’ unco vain, Should I believe, my coaxin’ billie, Your flatterin’ strain.

My senses wad be in a creel, Should I but dare a hope to speel, Wi’ Allan, or wi’ Gilbertfield, The braes o’ fame; Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel, A deathless name.

Yet when a tale comes i’ my head, Or lasses gie my heart a screed, As whiles they’re like to be my dead, (O sad disease!) I kittle up my rustic reed; It gies me ease.

Auld Coila, now, may fidge fu’ fain, She’s gotten poets o’ her ain, Chiels wha their chanters winna hain, But tune their lays, Till echoes a’ resound again Her weel-sung praise.

Nae poet thought her worth his while, To set her name in measur’d style; She lay like some unkenn’d-of isle, Beside New Holland, Or where wild-meeting oceans boil Besouth Magellan.

Ramsay an’ famous Fergusson Gied Forth an’ Tay a lift aboon; Yarrow an’ Tweed, to mony a tune, Owre Scotland rings, While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an’ Doon, Naebody sings.

Th’ Illissus, Tiber, Thames, an’ Seine, Glide sweet in mony a tunefu’ line; But, Willie, set your fit to mine, An’ cock your crest, We’ll gar our streams an’ burnies shine Up wi’ the best.

We’ll sing auld Coila’s plains an’ fells, Her moors red-brown wi’ heather bells, Her banks an’ braes, her dens an’ dells, Where glorious Wallace Aft bure the gree, as story tells, Frae Southron billies.

At Wallace’ name, what Scottish blood But boils up in a spring-tide flood! Oft have our fearless fathers strode By Wallace’ side, Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod, Or glorious died.

O, sweet are Coila’s haughs an’ woods, When lintwhites chant amang the buds, And jinkin’ hares, in amorous whids, Their loves enjoy, While thro’ the braes the cushat croods Wi’ wailfu’ cry!

Ev’n winter bleak has charms to me When winds rave thro’ the naked tree; Or frost on hills of Ochiltree Are hoary gray; Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee, Dark’ning the day!

O Nature! a’ thy shews an’ forms To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms! Whether the summer kindly warms, Wi’ life an’ light, Or winter howls, in gusty storms, The lang, dark night!

The Muse, nae poet ever fand her, Till by himsel he learn’d to wander Adown some trottin’ burn’s meander, An’ no think lang; O sweet, to stray an’ pensive ponder A heart-felt sang!

The warly race may drudge an’ drive, Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an’ strive; Let me fair Nature’s face descrive, And I, wi’ pleasure, Shall let the busy, grumbling hive Bum owre their treasure.

Fareweel, ‘my rhyme-composing brither!’ We’ve been owre lang unkenn’d to ither: Now let us lay our heads thegither, In love fraternal; May Envy wallop in a tether, Black fiend infernal!

While Highlandmen hate tolls an’ taxes; While moorlan’ herds like guid fat braxies; While Terra Firma, on her axis, Diurnal turns, Count on a friend, in faith an’ practice, In Robert Burns.