Robert Burns

On Pastoral Poetry

HAIL, Poesie! thou Nymph reserv’d!
In chase o’ thee what crowds hae swerv’d
Frae common sense, or sunk enerv’d
    ‘Mang heaps o’ clavers;
And oh! o’er aft thy joes hae starv’d,
    ‘Mid a’ thy favours!

Say, Lassie, why, thy train amang,
While loud the trump’s heroic clang,
And sock or buskin skelp alang
    To death or marriage,
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang
    But wi’ miscarriage?

In Homer’s craft Jock Milton thrives;
Eschylus’ pen Will Shakespeare drives;
Wee Pope, the knurlin’, till him rives
    Horatian fame;
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives
    Even Sappho’s flame.

But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?
They’re no herds’ ballats, Maro’s catches;
Squire Pope but busks his skinklin’ patches
    O’ heathen tatters:
I pass by hunders, nameless wretchcs,
    That ape their betters.

In this braw age o’ wit and lear,
Will nane the Shepherd’s whistle mair
Blaw sweetly in its native air
    And rural grace;
And wi’ the far-fam’d Grecian share
    A rival place?

Yes! there is ane-a Scottish callan!
There’s ane; come forrit, honest Allan!
Thou need na jouk behint the hallan,
    A chiel sae clever;
The teeth o’ Time may gnaw Tamtallan,
    But thou’s for ever!

Thou paints auld Nature to the nines,
In thy sweet Caledonian lines;
Nae gowden stream thro’ myrtles twines,
    Where Philomel,
While nightly breezes sweep the vines,
    Her griefs will tell!

In gowany glens thy burnie strays,
Where bonnie lasses bleach their claes;
Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,
    Wi’ hawthorns gray,
Where blackbirds join the shepherd’s lays
    At close o’ day.

Thy rural loves are nature’s sel’;
Nae bombast spates o’ nonsense swell;
Nae snap conceits; but that sweet spell
    O’ witchin’ love-
That charm that can the strongest quell,
    The sternest move.