'That's just a swatch o' Hornbook's way; [sample]
Thus goes he on from day to day,
Thus does he poison, kill an' slay,
An's weel pay'd for't;
Yet stops me o' my lawfu' prey
Wi' his damn'd dirt.
'But, hark! I'll tell you of a plot,
Tho' dinna ye be speaking o't;
I'll nail the self-conceited sot
As dead's a herrin':
Niest time we meet, I'll wad a groat, [Next, wager]
He gets his fairin'!'
But, just as he began to tell,
The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell [struck]
Some wee short hour ayont the twal, [beyond, twelve]
Which rais'd us baith: [got us to our feet]
I took the way that pleas'd mysel,
And sae did Death.
A few miscellaneous poems remain to be quoted. These do not naturally
fall into any of the major glasses of Burns's work, yet are too
important either for their intrinsic worth or the light they throw on
his character and genius to be omitted. The Elegies, of which he wrote
many, following, as has been seen, the tradition founded by Sempill of
Beltrees, may be exemplified by _Tam Samson's Elegy_ and that on
Captain Matthew Henderson. Special phases of Scottish patriotism are
expressed in _Scotch Drink_, and the address _To a Haggis_; while more
personal is _A Bard's Epitaph_.
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