Thy sons, Edina, social, kind,
     With open arms the stranger hail;
     Their views enlarg’d, their liberal mind,
     Above the narrow, rural vale: 
     Attentive still to Sorrow’s wail,
     Or modest Merit’s silent claim;
     And never may their sources fail! 
     And never Envy blot their name!

     Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn,
     Gay as the gilded summer sky,
     Sweet as the dewy, milk-white thorn,
     Dear as the raptur’d thrill of joy! 
     Fair Burnet strikes th’ adoring eye,
     Heaven’s beauties on my fancy shine;
     I see the Sire of Love on high,
     And own His work indeed divine!

     There, watching high the least alarms,
     Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar;
     Like some bold veteran, grey in arms,
     And mark’d with many a seamy scar: 
     The pond’rous wall and massy bar,
     Grim—­rising o’er the rugged rock,
     Have oft withstood assailing war,
     And oft repell’d th’ invader’s shock.

     With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears,
     I view that noble, stately Dome,
     Where Scotia’s kings of other years,
     Fam’d heroes! had their royal home: 
     Alas, how chang’d the times to come! 
     Their royal name low in the dust! 
     Their hapless race wild-wand’ring roam! 
     Tho’ rigid Law cries out ’twas just!

     Wild beats my heart to trace your steps,
     Whose ancestors, in days of yore,
     Thro’ hostile ranks and ruin’d gaps
     Old Scotia’s bloody lion bore: 
     Ev’n I who sing in rustic lore,
     Haply my sires have left their shed,
     And fac’d grim Danger’s loudest roar,
     Bold-following where your fathers led!

     Edina!  Scotia’s darling seat! 
     All hail thy palaces and tow’rs;
     Where once, beneath a Monarch’s feet,
     Sat Legislation’s sovereign pow’rs: 
     From marking wildly-scatt’red flow’rs,
     As on the banks of Ayr I stray’d,
     And singing, lone, the ling’ring hours,
     I shelter in thy honour’d shade.

Address To A Haggis

     Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
     Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race! 
     Aboon them a’ yet tak your place,
     Painch, tripe, or thairm: 
     Weel are ye wordy o’a grace
     As lang’s my arm.

     The groaning trencher there ye fill,
     Your hurdies like a distant hill,
     Your pin was help to mend a mill
     In time o’need,
     While thro’ your pores the dews distil
     Like amber bead.

     His knife see rustic Labour dight,
     An’ cut you up wi’ ready sleight,
     Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
     Like ony ditch;
     And then, O what a glorious sight,
     Warm-reekin’, rich!

     Then, horn for horn, they stretch an’ strive: 
     Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
     Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
     Are bent like drums;
     Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
     Bethankit! hums.