At Wallace’ name, what Scottish blood But boils up in a spring-tide flood! Oft have our fearless fathers strode By Wallace’ side, Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod, Or glorious died! O, sweet are Coila’s haughs an’ woods, When lintwhites chant amang the buds, And jinkin hares, in amorous whids, Their loves enjoy; While thro’ the braes the cushat croods With wailfu’ cry! Ev’n winter bleak has charms to me, When winds rave thro’ the naked tree; Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree Are hoary gray; Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee, Dark’ning the day! O Nature! a’ thy shews an’ forms To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms! Whether the summer kindly warms, Wi’ life an light; Or winter howls, in gusty storms, The lang, dark night! The muse, nae poet ever fand her, Till by himsel he learn’d to wander, Adown some trottin burn’s meander, An’ no think lang: O sweet to stray, an’ pensive ponder A heart-felt sang! The war’ly race may drudge an’ drive, Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an’ strive; Let me fair Nature’s face descrive, And I, wi’ pleasure, Shall let the busy, grumbling hive Bum owre their treasure. Fareweel, “my rhyme-composing” brither! We’ve been owre lang unkenn’d to ither: Now let us lay our heads thegither, In love fraternal: May envy wallop in a tether, Black fiend, infernal! While Highlandmen hate tools an’ taxes; While moorlan’s herds like guid, fat braxies; While terra firma, on her axis, Diurnal turns; Count on a friend, in faith an’ practice, In Robert Burns. Postcript My memory’s no worth a preen; I had amaist forgotten clean, Ye bade me write you what they mean By this “new-light,” ’Bout which our herds sae aft hae been Maist like to fight. In days when mankind were but callans At grammar, logic, an’ sic talents, They took nae pains their speech to balance, Or rules to gie; But spak their thoughts in plain, braid lallans, Like you or me. In thae auld times, they thought the moon, Just like a sark, or pair o’ shoon, Wore by degrees, till her last roon Gaed past their viewin; An’ shortly after she was done They gat a new ane. This passed for certain, undisputed; It ne’er cam i’ their heads to doubt it, Till chiels gat up an’ wad confute it, An’ ca’d it wrang; An’ muckle din there was about it, Baith loud an’ lang. Some herds, weel learn’d upo’ the beuk, Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk; For ’twas the auld moon turn’d a neuk An’ out of’ sight, An’ backlins-comin to the leuk She grew mair bright.