Elegy on the year eighty-eight/Elegy on the Year 1788

by Robert Burns

ELEGY

on

THE YEAR 1788.

By Robert Burns.

 

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For Lords or Kings I dinna mourn,
E’en let them die—for that they’re born!
But oh! prodigious to reflect,
A Towmont, Sirs, is gane to wreck!
O Eighty-eight, in thy sma’ space
What dire events ha’e taken place!
Of what enjoyments thou has reft us!
In what a pickle thou has left us!

The Spanish empire’s tint a head,
An’ my auld teethless Bawtie’s dead;
The toolzie’s teugh ’tween Pitt an’ Fox,
An’ our gudewife’s wee birdy cocks;
The tane is game, a bluidy devil,
But to the hen-birds unco civil;
The tither’s dour, has nae sic breedin’,
But better stuff ne’er claw’d a midden!

Ye ministers, come mount the pupit,
An’ cry till ye be haerse an’ rupit;
For Eighty-eight he wish’d you weel,
An’ gi’ed you a’ baith gear an’ meal;
E’en mony a plack, an’ mony a peck,
Ye ken yoursels, for little feck!

Ye bonny lasses, dight your een;
For some o' you ha'e tint a frien';
In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was ta’en
What ye'll ne'er ha'e to gi'e again.

Observe the very nowt an' sheep,
How dowff an' dowielie they creep;
Nae, even the yirth itsell does cry,
For Embro' walls are grutten dry.

O Eighty-eight, thou'se but a bairn,
An' no o’er auld, I hope, to learn!
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care,
Thou now has got thy Daddy's chair.
Nae hand-cuff'd, mizl'd, haff-shackl'd Regent,
But, like himsell, a full free Agent.
Be sure ye fallow out the plan
Nae war than he did, honest man!
As muckle better as you can!

January I. 1789.

 

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