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 an auld Scots sonnet,

Whiles 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 smoor’d;

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 murder’d bairn;

And near the thorn, aboon the well,

Whare Mungo’s mither hang’d 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 seem’d in a bleeze;

Thro ilka bore the beams were glancing,

And loud resounded mirth and dancing. –

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!

What dangers thou canst make us scorn!

Wi tippenny, we fear nae evil;

Wi usquabae, we’ll face the Devil! –

The swats sae ream’d in Tammie’s noddle,

Fair play, he car’d na deils a boddle.

But Maggie stood, right sair astonish’d,

Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d,

She ventur’d forward on the light;

And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight!

Warlocks and witches in a dance:

Nae cotillion, brent new frae France,

But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,

Put life and mettle in their heels.

A winnock-bunker in the east,

There sat Auld Nick, in shape o beast;

A touzie tyke, black, grim and large,

To gie them music was his charge:

He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl,

Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl.

Coffins stood round, like open presses,

That shaw’d the dead in their last dresses;

And, by some devilish cantraip sleight,

Each in its cauld hand held a light:

By which heroic Tam was able

To note upon the haly table,

A murderer’s banes, in gibbet-airns;

Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen’d bairns;

A thief new-cutted frae a rape,

Wi his last gasp his gab did gape;

Five tomahawks, wi bluid red-rusted;

Five scymitars, wi murder crusted;

A garter which a babe had strangled;

A knife, a father’s throat had mangled,

Whom his ain son o life bereft,

The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft;

Wi mair of horrible and awefu,

Which even to name wad be unlawfu.

As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d and curious,

The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;

The piper loud and louder blew,

The dancers quick and quicker flew,

They reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleekit,

Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,

And coost her duddies to the wark,

And linket at it in her sark!

Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans,

A’ plump and strapping in their teens!

Their sarks, instead o creeshie flannen,

Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!