Auld Reikiel thou’rt the canty hole,
  A bield for mony a caldrife soul,
  What snugly at thine ingle loll,
  Baith warm and couth,
  While round they gar the bicker roll
  To weet their mouth.

  When merry Yule Day comes, I trow,
  You’ll scantlins find a hungry mou;
  Sma’ are our cares, our stamacks fou
  O’ gusty gear
  And kickshaws, strangers to our view
  Sin’ fairn-year.

  Ye browster wives, now busk ye bra,
  And fling your sorrows far awa’;
  Then come and gie’s the tither blaw
  O’ reaming ale,
  Mair precious than the Well of Spa,
  Our hearts to heal.

  Then, though at odds wi’ a’ the warl’,
  Amang oursells we’ll never quarrel;
  Though Discord gie a cankered snarl
  To spoil our glee,
  As lang’s there’s pith into the barrel
  We’ll drink and ’gree.

  Fiddlers, your pins in temper fix,
  And roset weel your fiddlesticks;
  But banish vile Italian tricks
  From out your quorum,
  Nor fortes wi’ pianos mix—­
  Gie’s ‘Tullochgorum’!

  For naught can cheer the heart sae weel
  As can a canty Highland reel;
  It even vivifies the heel
  To skip and dance: 
  Lifeless is he wha canna feel
  Its influence.

  Let mirth abound; let social cheer
  Invest the dawning of the year;
  Let blithesome innocence appear,
  To crown our joy;
  Nor envy, wi’ sarcastic sneer,
  Our bliss destroy.

  And thou, great god of aqua vitae!
  Wha sways the empire of this city,—­
  When fou we’re sometimes caperneity,—­
  Be thou prepared
  To hedge us frae that black banditti,
  The City Guard.

ANONYMOUS

  ABSENCE

  When I think on the happy days
  I spent wi’ you, my dearie;
  And now what lands between us lie,
  How can I be but eerie!

  How slow ye move, ye heavy hours,
  As ye were wae and weary! 
  It was na sae ye glinted by
  When I was wi’ my dearie.

  JOHN LANGHORNE

  FROM THE COUNTRY JUSTICE

  GENERAL MOTIVES FOR LENITY

  Be this, ye rural Magistrates, your plan: 
  Firm be your justice, but be friends to man. 
  He whom the mighty master of this ball
  We fondly deem, or farcically call,
  To own the patriarch’s truth however loth,
  Holds but a mansion crushed before the moth. 
  Frail in his genius, in his heart, too, frail,
  Born but to err, and erring to bewail;

  Shalt thou his faults with eye severe explore,
  And give to life one human weakness more? 
  Still mark if vice or nature prompts the deed;
  Still mark the strong temptation and the need;
  On pressing want, on famine’s powerful call,
  At least more lenient let thy justice fall.

  APOLOGY FOR VAGRANTS