IN this strange land, this uncouth clime,
A land unknown to prose or rhyme;
Where words neer crosst the Muses heckles,
Nor limpit in poetic shackles:
A land that Prose did never view it,
Except when drunk he stachert thro it;
Here, ambushd by the chimla cheek,
Hid in an atmosphere of reek,
I hear a wheel thrum i the neuk,
I hear itfor in vain I leuk.
The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel,
Enhuskèd by a fog infernal:
Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,
I sit and count my sins by chapters;
For life and spunk like ither Christians,
Im dwindled down to mere existence,
Wi nae converse but Gallowa bodies,
Wi nae kennd face but Jenny Geddes,
Jenny, my Pegasean pride!
Dowie she saunters down Nithside,
And aye a westlin leuk she throws,
While tears hap oer her auld brown nose!
Was it for this, wi cannie care,
Thou bure the Bard through many a shire?
At howes, or hillocks never stumbled,
And late or early never grumbled?
O had I power like inclination,
Id heeze thee up a constellation,
To canter with the Sagitarre,
Or loup the ecliptic like a bar;
Or turn the pole like any arrow;
Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow,
Down the zodiac urge the race,
And cast dirt on his godships face;
For I could lay my bread and kail
Hed neer cast saut upo thy tail.
Wi a this care and a this grief,
And sma, sma prospect of relief,
And nought but peat reek i my head,
How can I write what ye can read?
Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o June,
Yell find me in a better tune;
But till we meet and weet our whistle,
Tak this excuse for nae epistle.ROBERT BURNS.
224. Epistle to Hugh Parker
written byRobert Burns
© Robert Burns