Poems and Songs of Robert Burns eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 836 pages of information about Poems and Songs of Robert Burns.
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Poems and Songs of Robert Burns eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 836 pages of information about Poems and Songs of Robert Burns.

     Adieu, dear, amiable youth! 
     Your heart can ne’er be wanting! 
     May prudence, fortitude, and truth,
     Erect your brow undaunting! 
     In ploughman phrase, “God send you speed,”
     Still daily to grow wiser;
     And may ye better reck the rede,
     Then ever did th’ adviser!

Address Of Beelzebub

To the Right Honourable the Earl of Breadalbane, President of the Right Honourable and Honourable the Highland Society, which met on the 23rd of May last at the Shakespeare, Covent Garden, to concert ways and means to frustrate the designs of five hundred Highlanders, who, as the Society were informed by Mr. M’Kenzie of Applecross, were so audacious as to attempt an escape from their lawful lords and masters whose property they were, by emigrating from the lands of Mr. Macdonald of Glengary to the wilds of Canada, in search of that fantastic thing—­Liberty.

     Long life, my Lord, an’ health be yours,
     Unskaithed by hunger’d Highland boors;
     Lord grant me nae duddie, desperate beggar,
     Wi’ dirk, claymore, and rusty trigger,
     May twin auld Scotland o’ a life
     She likes—­as butchers like a knife.

     Faith you and Applecross were right
     To keep the Highland hounds in sight: 
     I doubt na! they wad bid nae better,
     Than let them ance out owre the water,
     Then up among thae lakes and seas,
     They’ll mak what rules and laws they please: 
     Some daring Hancocke, or a Franklin,
     May set their Highland bluid a-ranklin;
     Some Washington again may head them,
     Or some Montgomery, fearless, lead them,
     Till God knows what may be effected
     When by such heads and hearts directed,
     Poor dunghill sons of dirt and mire
     May to Patrician rights aspire! 
     Nae sage North now, nor sager Sackville,
     To watch and premier o’er the pack vile,—­
     An’ whare will ye get Howes and Clintons
     To bring them to a right repentance—­
     To cowe the rebel generation,
     An’ save the honour o’ the nation? 
     They, an’ be d-d! what right hae they
     To meat, or sleep, or light o’ day? 
     Far less—­to riches, pow’r, or freedom,
     But what your lordship likes to gie them?

     But hear, my lord!  Glengarry, hear! 
     Your hand’s owre light to them, I fear;
     Your factors, grieves, trustees, and bailies,
     I canna say but they do gaylies;
     They lay aside a’ tender mercies,
     An’ tirl the hallions to the birses;
     Yet while they’re only poind’t and herriet,
     They’ll keep their stubborn Highland spirit: 
     But smash them! crash them a’ to spails,
     An’ rot the dyvors i’ the jails! 
     The young dogs, swinge them to the labour;
     Let wark an’ hunger mak them sober! 

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Poems and Songs of Robert Burns from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.