Robert Burns - The Complete Works

I call no goddess to inspire my strains,
A fabled muse may suit a bard that feigns;
Friend of my life! my ardent spirit burns,
And all the tribute of my heart returns,
For boons accorded, goodness ever new,
The gift still dearer, as the giver, you.
Thou orb of day! thou other paler light!
And all ye many sparkling stars of night;
If aught that giver from my mind efface;
If I that giver’s bounty e’er disgrace;
Then roll to me, along your wandering spheres,
Only to number out a villain’s years!

As I stood by yon roofless tower,
Where the wa’-flower scents the dewy air,
Where th’ howlet mourns in her ivy bower
And tells the midnight moon her care;
The winds were laid, the air was still,
The Stars they shot along the sky;
The fox was howling on the hill,
And the distant echoing glens reply.
The stream, adown its hazelly path,
Was rushing by the ruin’d wa’s,
Hasting to join the sweeping Nith, [110] VARIATIONS To join yon river on the Strath.
Whose distant roaring swells and fa’s.
The cauld blue north was streaming forth
Her lights, wi’ hissing eerie din;
Athort the lift they start and shift,
Like fortune’s favours, tint as win.
By heedless chance I turn’d mine eyes,
And, by the moon-beam, shook to see
A stern and stalwart ghaist arise,
Attir’d as minstrels wont to be. [111] VARIATIONS Now looking over firth and fauld, Her horn the pale-fac’d Cynthia rear’d; When, lo, in form of minstrel auld, A storm and stalwart ghaist appear’d.
Had I a statue been o’ stane,
His darin’ look had daunted me;
And on his bonnet grav’d was plain,
The sacred posy—‘Libertie!’
And frae his harp sic strains did flow,
Might rous’d the slumb’ring dead to hear;
But, oh! it was a tale of woe,
As ever met a Briton’s ear.
He sang wi’ joy the former day,
He weeping wail’d his latter times;
But what he said it was nae play,—
I winna ventur’t in my rhymes.

Health to the Maxwell’s vet’ran chief!
Health, ay unsour’d by care or grief:
Inspir’d, I turn’d Fate’s sybil leaf
This natal morn;
I see thy life is stuff o’ prief,
Scarce quite half worn.
This day thou metes three score eleven,
And I can tell that bounteous Heaven
(The second sight, ye ken, is given
To ilka Poet)
On thee a tack o’ seven times seven
Will yet bestow it.
If envious buckies view wi’ sorrow
Thy lengthen’d days on this blest morrow,
May desolation’s lang teeth’d harrow,
Nine miles an hour,
Rake them like Sodom and Gomorrah,
In brunstane stoure—
But for thy friends, and they are mony,
Baith honest men and lasses bonnie,
May couthie fortune, kind and cannie,
In social glee,
Wi’ mornings blythe and e’enings funny
Bless them and thee!
Fareweel, auld birkie! Lord be near ye,
And then the Deil he daur na steer ye;
Your friends ay love, your faes ay fear ye;
For me, shame fa’ me,
If neist my heart I dinna wear ye
While Burns they ca’ me!

While Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of state must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
First on the sexes’ intermix’d connexion,
One sacred Right of Woman is protection.
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate,
Helpless, must fall before the blasts of fate,
Sunk on the earth, defac’d its lovely form,
Unless your shelter ward th’ impending storm.
Our second Right—but needless here is caution,
To keep that right inviolate’s the fashion,
Each man of sense has it so full before him,
He’d die before he’d wrong it—’tis decorum.—
There was, indeed, in far less polish’d days,
A time, when rough, rude man had haughty ways;
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot,
Nay, even thus invade a lady’s quiet.
Now, thank our stars! these Gothic times are fled;
Now, well-bred men—and you are all well-bred—
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers)
Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners.
For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest,
That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest,
Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration
Most humbly own—’tis dear, dear admiration!
In that blest sphere alone we live and move;
There taste that life of life—immortal love.—
Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs,
‘Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares—
When awful Beauty joins with all her charms,
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms?
But truce with kings and truce with constitutions,
With bloody armaments and revolutions,
Let majesty your first attention summon,
Ah! ça ira! the majesty of woman!