Robert Burns - The Complete Works

I.
Dire was the hate at old Harlaw,
That Scot to Scot did carry;
And dire the discord Langside saw,
For beauteous, hapless Mary:
But Scot with Scot ne’er met so hot,
Or were more in fury seen, Sir,
Than ’twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job—
Who should be Faculty’s Dean, Sir.—
II.
This Hal for genius, wit, and lore,
Among the first was number’d;
But pious Bob, ‘mid learning’s store,
Commandment tenth remember’d.—
Yet simple Bob the victory got,
And won his heart’s desire;
Which shows that heaven can boil the pot,
Though the devil p—s in the fire.—
III.
Squire Hal besides had in this case
Pretensions rather brassy,
For talents to deserve a place
Are qualifications saucy;
So, their worships of the Faculty,
Quite sick of merit’s rudeness,
Chose one who should owe it all, d’ye see,
To their gratis grace and goodness.—
IV.
As once on Pisgah purg’d was the sight
Of a son of Circumcision,
So may be, on this Pisgah height,
Bob’s purblind, mental vision:
Nay, Bobby’s mouth may be open’d yet
Till for eloquence you hail him,
And swear he has the angel met
That met the Ass of Balaam.

Fair Empress of the Poet’s soul,
And Queen of Poetesses;
Clarinda, take this little boon,
This humble pair of glasses.
And fill them high with generous juice,
As generous as your mind;
And pledge me in the generous toast—
“The whole of human kind!”
“To those who love us!”—second fill;
But not to those whom we love;
Lest we love those who love not us!—
A third—“to thee and me, love!”

Clarinda, mistress of my soul,
The measur’d time is run!
The wretch beneath the dreary pole
So marks his latest sun.
To what dark cave of frozen night
Shall poor Sylvander hie;
Depriv’d of thee, his life and light,
The sun of all his joy.
We part—but, by these precious drops
That fill thy lovely eyes!
No other light shall guide my steps
Till thy bright beams arise.
She, the fair sun of all her sex,
Has blest my glorious day;
And shall a glimmering planet fix
My worship to its ray?

Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleas’d,
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure!
O thou my elder brother in misfortune,
By far my elder brother in the muses,
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!
Why is the bard unpitied by the world,
Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures?

When by a generous Public’s kind acclaim,
That dearest meed is granted—honest fame;
When here your favour is the actor’s lot,
Nor even the man in private life forgot;
What breast so dead to heavenly virtue’s glow,
But heaves impassion’d with the grateful throe?
Poor is the task to please a barbarous throng,
It needs no Siddons’ powers in Southerne’s song;
But here an ancient nation fam’d afar,
For genius, learning high, as great in war—
Hail, Caledonia, name for ever dear!
Before whose sons I’m honoured to appear!
Where every science—every nobler art—
That can inform the mind, or mend the heart,
Is known; as grateful nations oft have found
Far as the rude barbarian marks the bound.
Philosophy, no idle pedant dream,
Here holds her search by heaven-taught Reason’s beam;
Here History paints, with elegance and force,
The tide of Empires’ fluctuating course;
Here Douglas forms wild Shakspeare into plan,
And Harley [68] The Man of Feeling, by Mackenzie. rouses all the god in man.
When well-form’d taste and sparkling wit unite,
With manly lore, or female beauty bright,
(Beauty, where faultless symmetry and grace,
Can only charm as in the second place,)
Witness my heart, how oft with panting fear,
As on this night, I’ve met these judges here!
But still the hope Experience taught to live,
Equal to judge—you’re candid to forgive.
Nor hundred-headed Riot here we meet,
With decency and law beneath his feet:
Nor Insolence assumes fair Freedom’s name;
Like Caledonians, you applaud or blame.
O Thou dread Power! whose Empire-giving hand
Has oft been stretch’d to shield the honour’d land!
Strong may she glow with all her ancient fire:
May every son be worthy of his sire;
Firm may she rise with generous disdain
At Tyranny’s, or direr Pleasure’s chain;
Still self-dependent in her native shore,
Bold may she brave grim Danger’s loudest roar,
Till Fate the curtain drop on worlds to be no more.

A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight,
And still his precious self his dear delight;
Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets
Better than e’er the fairest she he meets:
A man of fashion, too, he made his tour,
Learn’d vive la bagatelle, et vive l’amour:
So travell’d monkeys their grimace improve,
Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies’ love.
Much specious lore, but little understood;
Veneering oft outshines the solid wood:
His solid sense—by inches you must tell.
But mete his cunning by the old Scots ell;
His meddling vanity, a busy fiend,
Still making work his selfish craft must mend.