Robert Burns

The Humble Petition of Bruar Water

MY Lord, I know your noble ear
  Woe ne’er assails in vain;
Embolden’d thus, I beg you’ll hear
  Your humble slave complain,
How saucy Phoebus’ scorching beams,
  In flaming summer-pride,
Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams,
  And drink my crystal tide.

The lightly-jumping glowrin’ trouts,
  That thro’ my waters play,
If, in their random wanton spouts,
  They near the margin stray;
If, hapless chance! they linger lang,
  I’m scorching up so shallow,
They’re left the whitening stanes amang,
  In gasping death to wallow.

Last day I grat wi’ spite and teen,
  As poet Burns came by,
That to a bard I should be seen
  Wi’ half my channel dry:
A panegyric rhyme, I ween,
  Even as I was, he shor’d me;
But had I in my glory been,
  He kneeling, wad ador’d me.

Here, foaming down the shelvy rocks,
  In twisting strength I rin;
There high my boiling torrent smokes,
  Wild-roaring o’er a linn:
Enjoying large each spring and well
  As Nature gave them me,
I am, altho’ I say’t mysel,
  Worth gaun a mile to see.

Would then my noble master please
  To grant my highest wishes,
He’ll shade my banks wi’ tow’ring trees,
  And bonnie spreading bushes.
Delighted doubly then, my Lord,
  You’ll wander on my banks,
And listen mony a grateful bird
  Return you tuneful thanks.

The sober laverock, warbling wild,
  Shall to the skies aspire;
The gowdspink, Music’s gayest child,
  Shall sweetly join the choir:
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear,
  The mavis mild and mellow;
The robin pensive Autumn cheer,
  In all her locks of yellow.

This, too, a covert shall ensure,
  To shield them from the storm;
And coward maukin sleep secure,
  Low in her grassy form:
Here shall the shepherd make his seat,
  To weave his crown of flow’rs;
Or find a sheltering safe retreat
  From prone-descending show’rs.

And here, by sweet endearing stealth,
  Shall meet the loving pair,
Despising worlds with all their wealth
  As empty idle care:
The flow’rs shall vie in all their charms
  The hour of heav’n to grace,
And birks extend their fragrant arms,
  To screen the dear embrace.

Here haply too, at vernal dawn,
  Some musing bard may stray,
And eye the smoking dewy lawn,
  And misty mountain gray;
Or, by the reaper’s nightly beam,
  Mild-chequering thro’ the trees,
Rave to my darkly dashing stream,
  Hoarse-swelling on the breeze.

Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,
  My lowly banks o’erspread,
And view, deep-bending in the pool,
  Their shadows’ wat’ry bed!
Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest
  My craggy cliffs adorn;
And, for the little songster’s nest,
  The close embow’ring thorn.

So may Old Scotia’s darling hope,
  Your little angel band,
Spring, like their fathers, up to prop
  Their honour’d native land!
So may thro’ Albion’s farthest ken,
  To social-flowing glasses
The grace be-’Athole’s honest men,
  And Athole’s bonnie lasses!’