A Night Out with Burns

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Authors: Robert Burns
wander’d mony a weary fitt,
    Sin auld lang syne.
    For auld, &c.
    We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
    Frae morning sun till dine;
    But seas between us braid hae roar’d,
    Sin auld lang syne.
    For auld, &c.

    And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
    And gie’s a hand o’ thine!
    And we’ll tak a right gude-willie-waught,
    For auld lang syne.
    For auld, &c.

    I f nobody restrains us, we will drink ourselves to destruction. Apart from the Russians and Scandinavians, I know of no people so dedicated as the British to stupefying themselves with alcohol.
    Hogarth’s biting depiction of Gin Lane and Cruickshank’s great anti-alcohol paintings are there to remind us of the hoggish, violent and self-destructive state we get into when we can, and the trail of wreckage we leave in broken marriages, neglected children and destroyed lives.
    Peter Hitchins, Daily Mail , April 2004

    Address to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly Righteous
    My Son, these maxims make a rule ,
    And lump them ay thegither;
    The Rigid Righteous is a fool ,
    The Rigid Wise anither :
    The cleanest corn that e’er was dight
    May hae some pyles o’ caff in;
    So ne’er a fellow-creature slight
    For random fits o’ daffin.
    Solomon—Eccles., vii:16

    O ye wha are sae guid yoursel,
    Sae pious and sae holy,
    Ye’ve nought to do but mark and tell
    Your Neebours’ fauts and folly!
    Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,
    Supply’d wi’ store o’ water,
    The heaped happer’s ebbing still,
    And still the clap plays clatter.

    Hear me, ye venerable Core,
    As counsel for poor mortals,
    That frequent pass douce Wisdom’s door
    For glaikit Folly’s portals;
    I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes
    Would here propone defences,
    Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes,
    Their failings and mischances.
    Ye see your state wi’ theirs compar’d,
    And shudder at the niffer,
    But cast a moment’s fair regard
    What maks the mighty differ;
    Discount what scant occasion gave,
    That purity ye pride in,
    And (what’s aft mair than a’ the lave)
    Your better art o’ hiding.

    Think, when your castigated pulse
    Gies now and then a wallop,
    What ragings must his veins convulse,
    That still eternal gallop:
    Wi’ wind and tide fair i’ your tail,
    Right on ye scud your sea-way;
    But, in the teeth o’ baith to sail,
    It maks an unco leeway.

    See Social-life and Glee sit down,
    All joyous and unthinking,
    Till, quite transmugrify’d, they’re grown
    Debauchery and Drinking:
    O would they stay to calculate
    Th’ eternal consequences;
    Or your more dreaded hell to state,
    Damnation of expences!
    Ye high, exalted, virtuous Dames,
    Ty’d up in godly laces,
    Before ye gie poor Frailty names,
    Suppose a change o’ cases;
    A dear-lov’d lad, convenience snug,
    A treacherous inclination—
    But, let me whisper i’ your lug,
    Ye’re aiblins nae temptation.

    Then gently scan your brother Man,
    Still gentler sister Woman;
    Tho’ they may gang a kennin wrang,
    To step aside is human:
    One point must still be greatly dark,
    The moving Why they do it;
    And just as lamely can ye mark,
    How far perhaps they rue it.

    Who made the heart,’ tis He alone
    Decidedly can try us,
    He knows each chord its various tone,
    Each spring its various bias:
    Then at the balance let’s be mute,
    We never can adjust it;
    What’s done we partly may compute,
    But know not what’s resisted .

    1 It is a well known fact that witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any farther than the middle of the next running stream.—It may be proper likewise to mention to the benighted traveller, that when he falls in with bogles , whatever danger may be in his going forward, there is much more hazard in turning back.
    1 This was wrote before the Act anent the Scotch Distilleries, of session 1786; for which Scotland and the Author return their

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