Robert Burns

* * *

No churchman am I for to rail and to write,
No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight,
No sly man of business contriving a snare,
For a big-bellied bottle’s the whole of my care.

The peer I don’t envy, I give him his bow;
I scorn not the peasant, tho’ ever so low;
But a club of good fellows, like those that are there,
And a bottle like this, are my glory and care.

Here passes the squire on his brother-his horse;
There centum per centum, the cit with his purse;
But see you the Crown how it waves in the air?
There a big-bellied bottle still eases my care.

The wife of my bosom, alas! she did die:
For sweet consolation to church I did fly;
I found that old Solomon proved it fair,
That the big-bellied bottle’s a cure for all care.

I once was persuaded a venture to make;
A letter inform’d me that all was to wreck;
But the pursy old landlord just waddled up stairs
With a glorious bottle that ended my cares.

‘Life’s cares they are comforts,’ a maxim laid down
By the bard, what d’ye call him? that wore the black gown,
And, faith, I agree with th’ old prig to a hair,
For a big-bellied bottle’s a heav’n of a care.

        (Added in a Mason Lodge)

Then fill up a bumper, and make it o’erflow,
And honours masonic prepare for to throw;
May every true brother of the compass and square
Have a big-bellied bottle when harass’d with care.