Or olio that wad staw a sow,

Or fricassee wad mak her spew

Wi perfect sconner,

Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view

On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,

As feckless as a wither’d rash,

His spindle shank a guid whip-lash

His nieve a nit;

Thro bloody flood or field to dash,

O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,

The trembling earth resounds his tread,

Clap in his walie nieve a blade,

He’ll make it whissle;

An legs an arms, an heads will sned,

Like taps o thrissle.

Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,

And dish them out their bill o fare,

Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware

That jaups in luggies;

But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,

Gie her a Haggis!

LINES ON FERGUSSON, THE POET

Ill-fated Genius! Heaven-taught Fergusson.

What heart that feels, and will not yield a tear

To think Life’s sun did set e’er well begun

To shed its influence on thy bright career.

O, why should truest Worth and Genius pine

Beneath the iron grasp of Want and Woe,

While titled knaves and idiot-greatness shine

In all the splendour Fortune can bestow?

THE BONIE MOOR-HEN
Tune: Beware of the Hunting

CHORUS

I rede you, beware at the hunting, young men;

I rede you, beware at the hunting, young men;

Tak some on the wing, and some as they spring,

But cannily steal on a bonie moor-hen.

The heather was blooming, the meadows were mawn,

Our lads gaed a-hunting ae day at the dawn,

O’er moors and o’er mosses and monie a glen:

At length they discovered a bonie moor-hen.

Sweet-brushing the dew from the brown heather bells,

Her colours betray’d her on yon mossy fells!

Her plumage outlustred the pride o the spring,

And O! as she wanton’d sae gay on the wing.

Auld Phœbus himsel, as he peep’d o’er the hill,

In spite at her plumage he tryed his skill;

He levell’d his rays where she bask’d on the brae –

His rays were outshone, and but mark’d where she lay.

They hunted the valley, they hunted the hill,

The best of our lads wi the best o their skill;

But still as the fairest she sat in their sight,

Then, whirr! she was over, a mile at a flight.

JOHNIE COPE

CHORUS

Hey Johnie Cope are ye wauking yet,

Or are ye sleeping I would wit;

O haste ye get up for the drums do beat,

O fye Cope rise in the morning.

Sir John Cope trode the north right far,

Yet ne’er a rebel he cam naur,

Until he landed at Dunbar

Right early in a morning.

He wrote a challenge for Dunbar,

Come fight me Charlie an ye daur;

If it be not by the chance of war

I’ll give you a merry morning.

When Charlie look’d the letter upon

He drew his sword and scabbard from –

‘So Heaven restore to me my own,

I’ll meet you, Cope, in the morning.’

Cope swore with many a bloody word