By Robert Burns
Note.—There are many homes we like to visit in imagination, even if we cannot really go into them. It does not matter so much if they are not the homes of people in our own country who live as we do. For instance, Robert Burns described so well for us once the simple little home of a poor Scotch farmer that we read his words again and again with pleasure. It is such a poor little place, low-walled, thatched-roofed, part stable, that it would be unpleasant to us if we did not see it full of the spirit that makes true homes everywhere. The hard-working old farmer, his faithful wife, their industrious children, the oldest girl Jenny and her lover, all seem to us like very real people, whose joys and griefs are ours as much as theirs. We should like to sit with them at their humble table, to join in the good old hymns, and finally to kneel among them while the gentle old man said the evening prayer. We would not notice their homely clothes, coarse hands and simple, unscholarly language, for their real manliness and womanliness would win our esteem and love.
On the pages that follow we have printed the poem as Burns wrote it, except for some few stanzas it has seemed best to omit. The first nine stanzas contain many Scottish words and expressions, but after the ninth stanza, Burns uses plain English. It was a habit he had of writing sometimes in Scotch dialect and sometimes in fine English. People who have studied his work say that when he speaks right from his heart and because he really cannot help writing, he uses the dialect, but when he tries to teach a lesson, to advise any one, or to moralize, he always uses the English phraseology.
I
November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh;320-1
The short’ning winter day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae320-2 the pleugh;320-3
The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose:
The toil-worn cotter frae his labor goes,
This night his weekly moil320-4 is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks,320-5 and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o’er the moor, his course does hameward bend.
II
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree:
Th’ expectant wee-things, toddlin’ stacher320-6 thro’
To meet their dad, wi’ flichterin’320-7 noise an’ glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin’ bonnily,
His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie’s smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a’ his weary carking320-8 cares beguile,
An’ makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.
III
Belyve,321-9 the elder bairns come drappin’ in.
At service out, amang the farmers roun’;
Some ca’321-10 the pleugh, some herd, some tentie321-11 rin
A cannie321-12 errand to a neebor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu’ bloom, love sparklin in her e’e,
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw321-13 new gown,
Or deposit her sair-won322-14 penny fee,
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
IV
Wi’ joy unfeign’d, brothers and sisters meet,
And each for other’s weelfare kindly spiers:322-15
The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnoticed fleet;
Each tells the uncos322-16 that he sees or hears;
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view;
The mother, wi’ her needle an’ her shears,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new;322-17
The father mixes a’ wi’ admonition due.
V
Their master’s an’ their mistress’s command,
The younkers322-18 a’ are warned to obey:
“An’ mind their labours wi’ an eydent322-19 hand,
An’ ne’er, tho’ out o’ sight, to jauk322-20 or play:
An’ O! be sure to fear the Lord alway!
An’ mind your duty, duly, morn an’ night!
Lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray,
Implore his counsel and assisting might:
They never sought in vain, that sought the Lord aright!”
VI
But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o’ the same,
Tells how a neebor lad cam’ o’er the moor,
To do some errands and convoy her hame.323-21
The wily mother sees the conscious flame
Sparkle in Jenny’s e’e,323-22 and flush her cheek;
With heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins323-23 is afraid to speak;
Weel pleas’d the mother hears, it’s nae323-24 wild, worthless rake.
VII
Wi’ kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben:323-25
A strappin’ youth; he takes the mother’s eye;
Blythe Jenny sees the visit’s no ill ta’en;323-26
The father cracks323-27 of horses, pleughs, and kye.323-28
The youngster’s artless heart o’erflows wi’ joy,
But blate323-29 and laithfu’,323-30 scarce can weel behave;
The mother, wi’ a woman’s wiles, can spy
What makes the youth sae323-31 bashfu’ an’ sae grave;
Weel pleas’d to think her bairn’s respected like the lave.323-32
VIII
But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch,324-33 chief o’ Scotia’s food:
The sowpe324-34 their only Hawkie324-35 does afford,
That ’yont the hallan324-36 snugly chows her cood;324-37
The dame brings forth in complimental mood
To grace the lad, her weel-hain’d324-38 kebbuck324-39 fell—
An’ aft he’s prest, an’ aft he ca’s it guid;324-40
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell,
How ’twas a towmond324-41 auld, sin’ lint was i’ the bell;324-42
IX
The cheerfu’ supper done, wi’ serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o’er, wi’ patriarchal grace,
The big ha’-Bible,324-43 ance324-44 his father’s pride:
His bonnet324-45 rev’rently is laid aside,
His lyart324-46 haffets324-47 wearing thin an’ bare:
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales325-48 a portion with judicious care;
And “Let us worship God!” he says, with solemn air.
X
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:
Perhaps Dundee’s wild warbling measures rise
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name,
Or noble Elgin beats the heav’nward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia’s holy lays.
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickl’d ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator’s praise.
XI
The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek’s ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heav’n’s avenging ire;
Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
XII
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head;
How his first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounc’d by Heaven’s command.
XIII
Then kneeling down, to Heaven’s Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope “springs exultant on triumphant wing:”
That thus they all shall meet in future days
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator’s praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.
XIV
Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion’s ev’ry grace, except the heart!
The Pow’r, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But, haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul;
And in the book of life the inmates poor enroll.
XV
Then homeward all take off their sev’ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That He, who stills the raven’s clam’rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow’ry pride,
Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.
