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RANTIN, ROVIN ROBIN

Tho' cruel Fate should bid us Part.1

Tune-"The Northern Lass."

THO' cruel fate should bid us part,
Far as the pole and line,
Her dear idea round my heart,

Should tenderly entwine.

Tho' mountains rise, and deserts howl,
And oceans roar between ;
Yet, dearer than my deathless soul,
I still would love my Jean.

Song-Rantin, Rovin Robin.2

Tune-"Daintie Davie."

THERE was a lad was born in Kyle,
But whatna day o' whatna style,
I doubt it's hardly worth the while
To be sae nice wi' Robin.

Chor.-Robin was a rovin boy,

Rantin, rovin, rantin, rovin,
Robin was a rovin boy,
Rantin, rovin Robin!

Our monarch's hindmost year but ane
Was five-and-twenty days begun,3

'Twas then a blast o' Janwar' win'

Blew hansela in on Robin.

Robin was, &c.

⚫ a first gift.

1 Probably Jean is Miss Armour : the piece is completed, as it were, in “O’ a' the airts the wind can blaw.'

Not published by Burns. The tune, Dainty Davie, is earlier, it seems, than the Presbyterian Dainty Davie, so justly admired for his gallantry by Charles II.

The text depends on Cromek (1808), who gives the last verse thus :

"Guid faith," quo' scho, "I doub
you, sir,

Ye gar the lasses...
But, &c."

The common reading, here adopted, is
Cunningham's, who gives no authority
for it.

8 Jan. 25, 1759, the date of my bardship's vital existence.-R. B.

ELEGY ON ROBERT RUISSEAUX

The gossip keekit in his loof,

b

Quo' scho, "Wha lives will see the proof,
This waly boy will be nae coofd:

I think we'll ca' him Robin."
Robin was, &c.

"He'll hae misfortunes great an' sma',
But aye a heart aboon them a',
He'll be a credit till us a'-

We'll a' be proud o' Robin."
Robin was, &c.

"But sure as three times three mak nine,
I see by ilka score and line,

This chap will dearly like our kin',

So leeze me on thee! Robin."
Robin was, &c.

"Guid faith," quo' scho,b "I doubt you gar
The bonie lasses lie aspar;

But twenty fauts ye may hae waur

So blessins on thee! Robin."

Robin was, &c.

Elegy on the Death of Robert Ruisseaux.'

Now Robin lies in his last lair,

He'll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair;

Cauld poverty, wi' hungry stare,

Nae mair shall fear him;

Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care,
E'er mair come near him.

b said she.

c ⚫ goodly.

⚫ peeped. 1 The date is uncertain: Mr Scott Douglas conjectures that Burns intended it for his Kilmarnock edition,

d fool.

• my heart is set. and withdrew it in favour of "The Poet's Epitaph."

Ruisseaux is French for rivulets or 'burns,' a translation of his name.

EPISTLE TO JOHN GOLDIE

To tell the truth, they seldom fash'd him,
Except the moment that they crush'd him;
For sune as chance or fate had hush'd 'em
Tho' e'er sae short,

Then wi' a rhyme or sang he lash'd 'em,
And thought it sport.

Tho' he was bred to kintra-wark,

And counted was baith wight and stark,b
Yet that was never Robin's mark

To mak a man ;

But tell him, he was learn'd and clark,"
Ye roos'dd him then!

Epistle to John Goldie, in Kilmarnock.1

AUTHOR OF THE GOSPEL RECOVERED.-AUGUST 1785.

O GOWDIE, terror o' the whigs,
Dread o' blackcoats and reverend wigs!
Sour Bigotry on his last legs

Girns an' looks back,

Wishing the ten Egyptian plagues
May seize you quick.

Poor gapin, glowrin Superstition!
Wae's me, she's in a sad condition:
Fye: bring Black Jock,2 her state physician,
To see her water:

Alas, there's ground for great suspicion
She'll ne'er get better.

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EPISTLE TO JOHN GOLDIE

Enthusiasm's past redemption,
Gane in a gallopin consumption:
Not a' her quacks, wi' a' their gumption,
Can ever mend her;

Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption,
She'll soon surrender.

Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple,
For every hole to get a stappleb;
But now she fetches at the thrapple,
An' fights for breath;

Haste, gie her name up in the chapel,1
Near unto death.

It's you an' Taylor2 are the chief
To blame for a' this black mischief;
But, could the L-d's ain folk get leave,
A toomd tar barrel

An' twa red peats wad bring relief,
And end the quarrel.

For me, my skill's but very sma',
An' skill in prose I've nane ava';
But quietlenwise, between us twa,
Weel may you speed!

And tho' they sud you sair misca',
Ne'er fash your head.

E'en swinge the dogs, and thresh them sicker"!
The mair they squeel aye chaph the thicker;
And still 'mang hands a hearty bickeri

O' something stout;

It gars an owthor's pulse beat quicker,
And helps his wit.

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THE HOLY FAIR

There's naething like the honest nappy";
Whare'll ye e'er see men sae happy,
Or women sonsie, saft an' sappy,
"Tween morn and morn,

As them wha like to taste the drappie,
In glass or horn?

I've seen me dazed upon a time,
I scarce could wink or see a styme°;
Just ae half-mutchkind does me prime,-
Ought less is little-

Then back I rattle on the rhyme,
As gleg's a whittle.

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1 "Holy Fair" is a common phrase in the west of Scotland for a sacramental occasion.-R. B.

Smith, of the "Cauld Harangues' (stanza 14), was an ancestor of Mr Robert Louis Stevenson. As Lockhart justly observes, Burns, in another mood, could have given a solemn picture of a very solemn occasion. These Holy Fairs arose in the Cromwellian occupation of Scotland, among the Protesters or Remonstrants, the extreme Left of the Covenanters. "A mighty multitude of devout men assemble for the wor

• the least bit.
f fresh.

ship of God, beneath the open heaven, and above the graves of their fathers," Burns had little or nothing of the old leaven of the Covenant: he descended, intellectually, from the populace whom Knox deprived of their Robin Hood Games and Sunday Golf. Heron, following, perhaps, the "Letter of a Blacksmith (1759), detected an element of "old Popish festivals" in the mingled religion and frolic of Holy Fairs. The Kirk had taken the mirth out of Scotland, tamen usque recurret, in the most incongruous of

"

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