Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Robert Burns (1759–1796). Poems and Songs.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

243 . 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 has left us!

The Spanish empire’s tint a head,

And my auld teethless, Bawtie’s dead:

The tulyie’s teugh ’tween Pitt and Fox,

And ’tween our Maggie’s twa wee cocks;

The tane is game, a bluidy devil,

But to the hen-birds unco civil;

The tither’s something dour o’ treadin,

But better stuff ne’er claw’d a middin.

Ye ministers, come mount the poupit,

An’ cry till ye be hearse an’ roupit,

For Eighty-eight, he wished you weel,

An’ gied ye a’ baith gear an’ meal;

E’en monc a plack, and mony a peck,

Ye ken yoursels, for little feck!

Ye bonie lasses, dight your e’en,

For some o’ you hae tint a frien’;

In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was taen,

What ye’ll ne’er hae to gie again.

Observe the very nowt an’ sheep,

How dowff an’ daviely they creep;

Nay, even the yirth itsel’ does cry,

For E’nburgh 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 Daddy’s chair;

Nae handcuff’d, mizl’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 muckle better as you can.