The auncient heroes gash an’ bauld In the uncanny days of auld, The task ance fo(u)nd to which th’were called, Stack stenchly to it. His life sic noble lives recalled, Little’s he knew it. Single an’ straucht, he went his way. He kept the faith an’ played the play. Whusky an’ he were man an’ may Whate’er betided. Bonny in life—in death—this twae Were no’ divided. An’ wow! but John was unco sport. Whiles he wad smile about the Court Malvolio-like—whiles snore an’ snort Was heard afar. The idle winter lads’ resort Was aye John’s bar. What’s merely humorous or bonny The Worl’ regairds wi’ cauld astony. Drunk men tak’ aye mair place than ony; An’ sae, ye see, The gate was aye ower thrang for Johnie— Or you an’ me. John micht hae jingled cap an’ bells, Been a braw fule in silks an’ pells, In ane o’ the auld worl’s canty hells Paris or Sodom. I wadnae had him naething else But Johnie Adam. He suffered—as have a’ that wan Eternal memory frae man, Since e’er the weary worl’ began— Mister or Madam, Keats or Scots Burns, the Spanish Don Or Johnie Adam. We leuch, an’ Johnie deid. An’ fegs! Hoo he had keept his stoiterin’ legs Sae lang’s he did’s a fact that begs An explanation. He stachers fifty years—syne plegs To’s destination. I WHO ALL THE WINTER THROUGH I WHO all the winter through Cherished other loves than you, And kept hands with hoary policy in marriage-bed and pew; Now I know the false and true, For the earnest sun looks through, And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew. Now the hedged meads renew Rustic odour, smiling hue, And the clean air shines and tinkles as the world goes wheeling through; And my heart springs up anew, Bright and confident and true, And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew. LOVE, WHAT IS LOVE? LOVE—what is love? A great and aching heart; Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair. Life—what is life? Upon a moorland bare To see love coming and see love depart. SOON OUR FRIENDS PERISH SOON our friends perish, Soon all we cherish Fades as days darken—goes as flowers go. Soon in December Over an ember, Lonely we hearken, as loud winds blow. AS ONE WHO HAVING WANDERED ALL NIGHT LONG AS one who having wandered all night long In a perplexed forest, comes at length In the first hours, about the matin song, And when the sun uprises in his strength, To the fringed margin of the wood, and sees, Gazing afar before him, many a mile Of falling country, many fields and trees, And cities and bright streams and far-off Ocean’s smile: