Grown tired of mourning for my sins
And brooding over merits
The other night with bothered brow
I went amongst the spirits;
And I met one that I knew well:
Oh, Scottys Ghost, is that you?
And did you see the fearsome crowd
At Robbie Burnss statue?
They hurried up in hansom cabs,
Tall-hatted and frock-coated;
They trained it in from all the towns,
The weird and hairy-throated;
They spoke in some outlandish tongue,
They cut some comic capers,
And ilka man was wild to get
His name in all the papers.
They showed no gleam of intellect,
Those frauds who rushed before us;
They knew one verse of Auld Lang Syne
The first one and the chorus:
They clacked the clack o Scotlans Bard,
They glibly talked of Rabby;
But what if he had come to them
Without a groat and shabby?
They drank and wept for Robbies sake,
They stood and brayed like asses
(The living bards a drunken rake,
The dead one loved the lasses);
If Robbie Burns were here, theyd sit
As still as any mouse is;
If Robbie Burns should come their way,
Theyd turn him out their houses.
Oh, weep for bonny Scotlands bard!
And praise the Scottish nation,
Who made him spy and let him die
Heart-broken in privation:
Exciseman, so that he might live
Through northern winters rigours
Just as in southern lands they give
The hard-up rhymer figures.
We need some songs of stinging fun
To wake the States and light em;
I wish a man like Robert Burns
Were here to-day to write em!
But still the mockery shall survive
Till the Day o Judgment crashes
The men we scorn when were alive
With praise insult our ashes.
And Scottys ghost said: Never mind
The fleas that you inherit;
The living bard can flick them off
They cannot hurt his spirit.
The crawlers round the bardies name
Shall crawl through all the ages;
His works the living thing, and they
Are fly-dirt on the pages.
