Page:Beauties of Burn's poems.pdf/52

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Auld uncle John, wha wedlock's joys
 Sin' Mar's year did desire,
Because he gat the toom dish thrice,
 He heav'd them on the fire
In wrath that night!

Wi' merry sangs, and friendly cracks,
 I wat they did not weary;
And unco tales, and funny jokes,
 Their sports were cheap and cheery,
Till butter'd Sow'ns^[1], wi' fragrant lunt,
 Set a' their gabs a steerin;
Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt
 They parted aff careerin,
Fu' blythe that night.

 

Divider from 'The Beauties of Burn's Poems' a chapbook printed in Falkirk in 1819

 

THE VISION.

DUAN FIRST^[2]

The Sun had clos'd the winter-day,
The curlers quat their roaring play,
And hunger'd Maukin taen her way
To kail-yards green,
While faithless snaws ilk stap betray
Whar she has been.

1. Sowans, with butter instead of milk to them, is always the Hallowe'en Supper.
2. Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive Poem. See his Cath-Loda, Vol. 2. of M'Pherson's Translation.