Poem by Robert Anderson

The Happy Family

The hollow blast blows owre the hill,
 And comin down's the sleet;
God help them, widout house or hauld,
 This dark and stormy neet!
Come, Jobby, gi'e the fire a prod,
 Then steek the entry duir;
It's wise to keep cauld winter out,
 When we ha'e't in our pow'r.

Heaste, Jenny! put the bairns to bed,
 And mind they say their pray'rs;
Sweet innocents! their heads yence down,
 They sleep away their cares!
But gi' them furst a butter-shag,
 When young, they munnet want,
Nor ever sal a bairn o' mine,
 While I've a bite to grant.

O wife! that weary rheumatism,
 E'en gars thee luik but thin;
I mind when tou was fresh and fair,
 And fattest o' thy kin;
But yage comes on, dui what we can—
 We munnet think it hard;—
A week at Gilsland tou salt try,
 Neist summer, if we're spar'd.

Now, seated at my own fire-nuik,
 Content as onie king,
For hawf an hour aswore we sleep,
 Bess, quit thy wark and sing:
Try that about the beggar lass,
 'Twill please thy mudder best,
For she, tou kens, can always feel
 For peer fwok when distrest.

Nay! what it's owre! tou cannot sing,
 But weel I guess the cause;
Young Wulliam sud ha'e come to neet—
 Consider, lass! it snows!
Another neet 'll suin be here,
 Sae divvent freet and whine:
Co' when he will, he's welcome still
 To onie bairn o' mine.

I'll ne'er forget when we were young,
 (Thy mudder kens as weel,)
We met but yence a month, and then
 Out she was fworc'd to steal:
The happiest day we e'er had known,
 Was when I caw'd her mine,
But monie a thousand happier days
 We beath ha'e kent sin-seyne.

1. Epitaph on Maria of the Cottage
2. Song 1. A Lassie and a Gill
3. Feckless Wully
4. Britannia’s Call
5. Mad Margery

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