Ah, gentle dames, it gars me greet
  To think how monie counsels sweet,
  How monie lengthened, sage advices,
  The husband frae the wife despises!

  But to our tale.  Ae market-night
  Tam had got planted unco right,
  Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
  Wi’ reaming swats, that drank divinely;
  And at his elbow, Souter Johnie,
  His ancient, trusty, drouthy cronie: 
  Tam lo’ed him like a very brither;
  They had been fou for weeks thegither. 
  The night drave on wi’ sangs and clatter,
  And ay the ale was growing better;
  The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
  Wi’ secret favours, sweet and precious;
  The souter tauld his queerest stories,
  The landlord’s laugh was ready chorus;
  The storm without might rair and rustle,
  Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

  Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
  E’en drowned himself amang the nappy. 
  As bees flee hame wi’ lades o’ treasure,
  The minutes winged their way wi’ pleasure: 
  Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
  O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious!

  But pleasures are like poppies spread—­
  You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;
  Or like the snow falls in the river,
  A moment white—­then melts forever;
  Or like the borealis race,
  That flit ere you can point their place;
  Or like the rainbow’s lovely form,
  Evanishing amid the storm. 
  Nae man can tether time or tide: 
  The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
  That hour, o’ night’s black arch the key-stane,
  That dreary hour Tam mounts his beast in,
  And sic a night he taks the road in
  As ne’er poor sinner was abroad in.

  The wind blew as ’t wad blawn its last: 
  The rattling showers rose on the blast;
  The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed;
  Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed: 
  That night, a child might understand,
  The Deil had business on his hand.

  Weel-mounted on his gray mare Meg,
  A better never lifted leg,
  Tam skelpit on thro’ dub and mire,
  Despising wind and rain and fire;
  Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet,
  Whiles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet,
  While glow’ring round wi’ prudent cares,
  Lest bogles catch him unawares: 
  Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
  Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry.

  By this time he was cross the ford,
  Whare in the snaw the chapman smoored;
  And past the birks and meikle stane,
  Whare drunken Charlie brak’s neck-bane;
  And thro’ the whins and by the cairn,
  Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn;
  And near the thorn, aboon the well,
  Whare Mungo’s mither hanged hersel. 
  Before him Doon pours all his floods;
  The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods;
  The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
  Near and more near the thunders roll;
  When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees,
  Kirk-Alloway seemed in a bleeze: 
  Thro’ ilka bore the beams were glancing,
  And loud resounded mirth and dancing.