O YE wha are sae guid yoursel,
Sae pious and sae holy,
Yeve nought to do but mark and tell
Your neibours fauts and folly!
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,
Supplied wi store o water;
The heaped happers ebbing still,
An still the clap plays clatter.
Hear me, ye venerable core,
As counsel for poor mortals
That frequent pass douce Wisdoms door
For glaikit Follys portals:
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,
Would here propone defences
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes,
Their failings and mischances.
Ye see your state wi theirs compared,
And shudder at the niffer;
But cast a moments fair regard,
What maks the mighty differ;
Discount what scant occasion gave,
That purity ye pride in;
And (whats aft mair than a the lave),
Your better art o hidin.
Think, when your castigated pulse
Gies now and then a wallop!
What ragings must his veins convulse,
That still eternal gallop!
Wi wind and tide fair i your tail,
Right on ye scud your sea-way;
But in the teeth o baith to sail,
It maks a unco lee-way.
See Social Life and Glee sit down,
All joyous and unthinking,
Till, quite transmugrified, theyre grown
Debauchery and Drinking:
O would they stay to calculate
Th eternal consequences;
Or your more dreaded hell to state,
Damnation of expenses!
Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,
Tied up in godly laces,
Before ye gie poor Frailty names,
Suppose a change o cases;
A dear-lovd lad, convenience snug,
A treachrous inclination
But let me whisper i your lug,
Yere aiblins nae temptation.
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving Why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.
Who made the heart, tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance lets be mute,
We never can adjust it;
Whats done we partly may compute,
But know not whats resisted.
