Robert Burns

Elegy on the Year 1788

FOR Lords or Kings I dinna mourn,
E’en let them die-for that they’re born:
But oh! prodigious to reflec’!
A Towmont, Sirs, is gane to wreck!
O EIghty-eight, In thy sma’ space
What dire events hae taken place!
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us!
In what a pickle thou hast left us!
  The Spanish empire’s tint a head,
And my auld teethless Bawtie’s dead!
The tulzie’s sair ‘tween Pitt an’ Fox,
An’ our gudewife’s wee birdy cocks;
The tane is game, a bludie devil,
But to the hen-birds unco civil;
The tither’s something dour o’ treadin,
But better stuff ne’er claw’d a midden.
  Ye ministers, come mount the poupit,
An’ cry till ye be hearse an’ roupet,
For Eighty-eight he wish’d you weel,
And gied you a’ baith gear an’ meal;
E’en mnony a plack, and mony a peck,
Ye ken yoursels, for little feck.
  Ye bonnie lasses, dight your een,
For some o’ you hae tint a frien’;
In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was ta’en
What ye’ll ne’er hae to gie again.
  Observe the very nowt an’ sheep,
How dowf and daviely they creep;
Nay, even the yirth itsel does cry,
For E’mbrugh wells are grutten dry.
  O Eighty-nine, thou’s but a bairn,
An’ no owre auld, I hope, to learn!
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care,
Thou now hast got thy daddie’s chair,
Nae hand-cuff’d, mizzl’d, hap-shackl’d Regent,
But, like himsel, a full free agent.
Be sure ye follow out the plan
Nae waur than he did, honest man:
As mnuckle better as you can.

January I, 1789.