O Jenny, dinna toss your head, An' set your beauties a' abread! Ye little ken what cursèd speed The blastie's makin! Thae winks an' finger-ends, I dread, Are notice takin! O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An' foolish notion; What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, An' ev'n devotion! FROM EPISTLE TO J. LAPRAIK I am nae poet, in a sense, But just a rhymer like by chance, An' hae to learning nae pretence; Yet what the matter? Whene'er my Muse does on me glance, I jingle at her. Your critic-folk may cock their nose, And say, 'How can you e'er propose, You wha ken hardly verse frae prose, To mak a sang?' But, by your leaves, my learnèd foes, Ye're maybe wrang. What's a' your jargon o' your schools, Your Latin names for horns an' stools? If honest Nature made you fools, What sairs your grammers? Ye'd better taen up spades and shools Or knappin-hammers. A set o' dull, conceited hashes Confuse their brains in college classes; They gang in stirks, and come out asses, Plain truth to speak; An' syne they think to climb Parnassus By dint o' Greek! Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire, That's a' the learning I desire; Then, tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire At pleugh or cart, My Muse, tho' hamely in attire, May touch the heart. THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT My loved, my honoured, 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 sequestered scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways, What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah, though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween! November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; The shortening winter-day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; The blackening trains o' craws to their repose: The toil-worn cotter frae his labour 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 through 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, And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.