IN this strange land, this uncouth clime, <br />A land unknown to prose or rhyme; <br />Where words ne'er cross't the Muse's heckles, <br />Nor limpit in poetic shackles: <br />A land that Prose did never view it, <br />Except when drunk he stacher't thro' it; <br />Here, ambush'd by the chimla cheek, <br />Hid in an atmosphere of reek, <br />I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk, <br />I hear it—for in vain I leuk. <br />The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel, <br />Enhuskèd by a fog infernal: <br />Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures, <br />I sit and count my sins by chapters; <br />For life and spunk like ither Christians, <br />I'm dwindled down to mere existence, <br />Wi' nae converse but Gallowa' bodies, <br />Wi' nae kenn'd face but Jenny Geddes, <br />Jenny, my Pegasean pride! <br />Dowie she saunters down Nithside, <br />And aye a westlin leuk she throws, <br />While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose! <br />Was it for this, wi' cannie care, <br />Thou bure the Bard through many a shire? <br />At howes, or hillocks never stumbled, <br />And late or early never grumbled? — <br />O had I power like inclination, <br />I'd heeze thee up a constellation, <br />To canter with the Sagitarre, <br />Or loup the ecliptic like a bar; <br />Or turn the pole like any arrow; <br />Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow, <br />Down the zodiac urge the race, <br />And cast dirt on his godship's face; <br />For I could lay my bread and kail <br />He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail.— <br />Wi' a' this care and a' this grief, <br />And sma', sma' prospect of relief, <br />And nought but peat reek i' my head, <br />How can I write what ye can read? — <br />Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o' June, <br />Ye'll find me in a better tune; <br />But till we meet and weet our whistle, <br />Tak this excuse for nae epistle.<br /><br />Robert Burns<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/epistle-to-hugh-parker/
