NOW bare to the beholder’s eye Your late denuded bindings lie, Subsiding slowly where they fell, A disinvested citadel; The obdurate corset, Cupid’s foe, The Dutchman’s breeches frilled below. Those that the lover notes to note, And white and crackling petticoat. From these, that on the ground repose, Their lady lately re-arose; And laying by the lady’s name, A living woman re-became. Of her, that from the public eye They do enclose and fortify, Now, lying scattered as they fell, An indiscreeter tale they tell: Of that more soft and secret her Whose daylong fortresses they were, By fading warmth, by lingering print, These now discarded scabbards hint. A twofold change the ladies know: First, in the morn the bugles blow, And they, with floral hues and scents, Man their beribboned battlements. But let the stars appear, and they Shed inhumanities away; And from the changeling fashion see, Through comic and through sweet degree, In nature’s toilet unsurpassed, Forth leaps the laughing girl at last. THE BOUR-TREE DEN CLINKUM-CLANK in the rain they ride, Down by the braes and the grey sea-side; Clinkum-clank by stane and cairn, Weary fa’ their horse-shoe-airn! Loud on the causey, saft on the sand, Round they rade by the tail of the land; Round and up by the Bour-Tree Den, Weary fa’ the red-coat men! Aft hae I gane where they hae rade And straigled in the gowden brooms— Aft hae I gane, a saikless maid, And O! sae bonny as the bour-tree blooms! Wi’ swords and guns they wanton there, Wi’ red, red coats and braw, braw plumes. But I gaed wi’ my gowden hair, And O! sae bonny as the bour-tree blooms! I ran, a little hempie lass, In the sand and the bent grass, Or took and kilted my small coats To play in the beached fisher-boats. I waded deep and I ran fast, I was as lean as a lugger’s mast, I was as brown as a fisher’s creel, And I liked my life unco weel. They blew a trumpet at the cross, Some forty men, both foot and horse. A’body cam to hear and see, And wha, among the rest, but me. My lips were saut wi’ the saut air, My face was brown, my feet were bare The wind had ravelled my tautit hair, And I thought shame to be standing there. Ae man there in the thick of the throng Sat in his saddle, straight and strong. I looked at him and he at me, And he was a master-man to see. . . . And who is this yin? and who is yon That has the bonny lendings on? That sits and looks sae braw and crouse? . . . Mister Frank o’ the Big House! I gaed my lane beside the sea; The wind it blew in bush and tree, The wind blew in bush and bent: Muckle I saw, and muckle kent! Between the beach and the sea-hill I sat my lane and grat my fill— I was sae clarty and hard and dark, And like the kye in the cow park!