40

"Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost!
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!
Not all your rage, as now united, shows
More hard unkindness unrelenting,
Vengeful malice, unrepenting,
Than heaven-illumin'd Man on brother Man
bestows!

See stern Oppression's iron grip,
Or mad Ambition's gory hand,
Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip,
Woe, Want, and Murder o'er a land!
Ev'n in the peaceful rural vale,
Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale:
How pamper'd Luxury, Flatt'ry by her side,
The parasite empoisoning her ear,
With all the servile wretches in the rear,
Looks o'er proud Property, extended wide;
And eyes the simple, rustic hind,
Whose toil upholds the glitt'ring show
A creature of another kind,

Some coarser substance, unrefin'd

21

O Tam, had'st thou but been sae wise, As taen thy ain wife Kate's advice! She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum; That frae November till October, Ae market-day thou was nae sober; That ilka melder wi' the miller, Thou sat as lang as thou had siller; That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on, The smith and thee gat roaring fou on; That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday, Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday. She prophesied, that, late or soon, Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon, Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk By Alloway's auld, haunted kirk.

Ah! gentle dames, it gars me greet, To think how monie counsels sweet, How monie lengthen'd, sage advices The husband frae the wife despises !

But to our tale: Ae market-night, Tam had got planted unco right, Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,

31

Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely; 40
And at his elbow, Souter Johnie,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy cronie:
Tam lo'ed him like a very brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter;
And ay the ale was growing better:
The landlady and Tam grew gracious
Wi' secret favours, sweet and precious:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus: 50
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man sae happy, E'en drown'd himsel amang the nappy. As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure:

By this time he was cross the ford, Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd; And past the birks and meikle stane, Whare drunken Charlie brak 's neck-bane; And thro' the whins, and by the cairn, Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn; And near the thorn, aboon the well, Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel. Before him Doon pours all his floods; The doubling storm roars thro' the woods; The lightnings flash from pole to pole; Near and more near the thunders roll: When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees, Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze,

Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing, And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

100

130

There sat Auld Nick, in shape o' beast; 120
A tousie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses;
And, by some devilish cantraip sleight,
Each in its cauld hand held a light:
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table,
A murderer's banes, in gibbet-airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns;
A thief new-cutted frae a rape —
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks wi' bluid red-rusted;
Five scymitars wi' murder crusted;
A garter which a babe had strangled;
A knife a father's throat had mangled
Whom his ain son o' life bereft -
The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi' mair of horrible and awefu',
Which even to name wad be unlawfu'.

140

170

There was ae winsome wench and wawlie,
That night enlisted in the core,
Lang after kend on Carrick shore
(For monie a beast to dead she shot,
An' perish'd monie a bonie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the country-side in fear).
Her cutty sark, o' Paisley harn,
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude tho' sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.
Ah! little kend thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi' twa pund Scots ('t was a' her riches),
Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches!

180

But here my Muse her wing maun cour, Sic flights are far beyond her power: To sing how Nannie lap and flang (A souple jad she was and strang), And how Tam stood like ane bewitch'd,

And thought his very een enrich'd;

Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain,

And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main; Till first ae caper, syne anither,

Tam tint his reason a' thegither,

And roars out: "Weel done, Cutty-sark!"
And in an instant all was dark;

And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.

As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie's mortal foes,

When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,

190

When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud: So Maggie runs, the witches follow,

Wi' monie an eldritch skriech and hollo. 200

Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'll get thy

fairin!

In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin!