They’re a’ in famous tune

For crack that day.

How monie hearts this day converts

O sinners and o lasses!

Their hearts o stane, gin night, are gane

As saft as onie flesh is.

There’s some are fou o love divine;

There’s some are fou o brandy;

An monie jobs that day begin,

May end in houghmagandie

Some ither day.

THE COTTER’S SATURDAY NIGHT
Inscribed to R. Aiken, Esq.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure:

Nor Grandeur bear, with a disdainful smile,

The short and simple annals of the Poor.

– THOMAS GRAY

My lov’d, my honour’d, much respected friend!

No mercenary bard his homage pays:

With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end,

My dearest meed, a friend’s esteem and praise:

To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,

The lowly train in life’s sequester’d scene;

The native feelings strong, the guileless ways:

What Aiken in a cottage would have been,

Ah! tho his worth unknown, far happier there I ween!

November chill blaws loud wi angry sugh;

The short’ning winter-day is near a close;

The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;

The black’ning trains o craws to their repose:

The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes, –

This night his weekly moil is at an end,

Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,

Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,

And weary, o’er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th’ expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher thro’

To meet their dad, wi flichterin noise and glee.

His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie,

His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile,

The lisping infant, prattling on his knee,

Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile,

An makes him quite forget his labor and his toil.

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,

At service out, amang the farmers roun;

Some ca’ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin

A cannie errand to a neebor town:

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,

In youthfu bloom, love sparkling in her e’e,

Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown,

Or deposits her sair-won penny-fee,

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

With joy unfeign’d, brothers and sisters meet,

And each for other’s welfare kindly spiers:

The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnotic’d fleet;

Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears.

The parents partial eye their hopeful years;

Anticipation forward points the view;

The mother, wi her needle and her sheers,

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new;

The father mixes a’ wi admonition due.

Their master’s and their mistress’s command,

The younkers a’ are warned to obey;

And mind their labors wi an eydent hand,

And ne’er, tho out o sight, to jauk or play;

‘And O! be sure to fear the Lord always!

And mind your duty, duely, morn and night;

Lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray,

Implore His counsel and assisting might: