The Canongate Burns. Robert Burns
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eyes
Poor Hughoc like a statue stan’s;
He saw her days were near hand ended,
10 But, wae’s my heart! he could na mend it! woe, not
He gaped wide, but naething spak. nothing spoke
At length poor Mailie silence brak: — broke
‘O thou, whase lamentable face whose
Appears to mourn my woefu’ case!
15 My dying words attentive hear,
An’ bear them to my Master dear.
‘Tell him, if e’er again he keep
As muckle gear as buy a sheep, much money
O, bid him never tie them mair, more
20 Wi’ wicked strings o’ hemp or hair!
But ca’ them out to park or hill, call/drive
An’ let them wander at their will:
So may his flock increase, an’ grow
To scores o’ lambs, an’ packs o’ woo’!
25 ‘Tell him, he was a Master kin’, kind
An’ ay was guid to me an’ mine; good
An’ now my dying charge I gie him, give
My helpless lambs, I trust them wi’ him. with
‘O, bid him save their harmless lives,
30 Frae dogs, an’ tods, an’ butchers’ knives! from, foxes
But gie them guid cow-milk their fill, give, good
Till they be fit to fend themsel; themselves
An’ tent them duely, e’en an’ morn, tend
Wi’ taets o’ hay an’ ripps o’ corn. small amounts, handfuls
35 ‘An’ may they never learn the gaets, ways
Of ither vile, wanrestfu’ Pets — other, restless
To slink thro’ slaps, an’ reave an’ steal, gaps in dykes
At stacks o’ pease, or stocks o’ kail. plants
So may they, like their great forbears,
40 For monie a year come thro’ the sheers: many
So wives will gie them bits o’ bread, give
An’ bairns greet for them when they’re dead. children cry
‘My poor toop-lamb, my son an’ heir, tup/male
O, bid him breed him up wi’ care! with
45 An’ if he live to be a beast,
To pit some havins in his breast! conduct
An’ warn him, what I winna name, would not
To stay content wi’ yowes at hame; ewes
An’ no to rin an’ wear his cloots, run, hooves
50 Like other menseless, graceless brutes. unmannerly
‘An’ niest, my yowie, silly thing; next, ewekin/female baby
Gude keep thee frae a tether string! from
O, may thou ne’er forgather up, make friends
Wi’ onie blastet, moorland toop; any, blasted/damned
55 But ay keep mind to moop an’ mell, always, nibble & mix
Wi’ sheep o’ credit like thysel!
‘And now, my bairns, wi’ my last breath,
I lea’e my blessin wi’ you baith: leave, with, both
An’ when you think upo’ your Mither, mother
60 Mind to be kind to ane anither. one another
‘Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail, do not
To tell my Master a’ my tale;
An’ bid him burn this cursed tether,
An’ for thy pains thou’se get my blather.’ thou will, bladder
65 This said, poor Mailie turn’d her head,
An’ clos’d her een amang the dead! eyes, among
This poem fuses an actual experience at Lochlea, subsequently recorded by Gilbert Burns, with Burns’s awareness of the tradition of comic animal monologue as integral to the eighteenth-century Scottish vernacular revival. As Burns noted, Hughoc was an actual neighbouring herdsman though, in reality, the sheep was freed from the strangling tether and survived. Its ‘poetic’ death is necessary to the comic pathos of the poem. The literary tradition of burlesquing animal poetry commenced with William Hamilton of Gilbertfield (c. 1665–1751) whose rhetorical greyhound’s death-speech parodies Blind Harry’s Wallace. Burns would also be aware of the so-influential Robert Fergusson’s very funny parody of Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling (1771) with his Milton-burlesquing The Sow of Feeling (1773). As we saw in the Introduction, Mackenzie never forgave Fergusson’s lachrymose porcine parody. The tone of Burns’s poem is more subtle since the mother’s dying warnings to her children, particularly against keeping the wrong sexual company, are a mixture of his satirising snobbery and prudery with genuine sympathy towards a mother’s natural, protective love. Burns, indeed (see Address to a Young Friend), often displayed a genuine paternal care, which revealed a desire to preserve his varied dependants from the dangers inherent in his own licentious excesses.
Poor Mailie’s Elegy
First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.
Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
Wi’ saut tears tricklin down your nose; salt
Our Bardie’s fate is at a close,
Past a’ remead! remedy
5 The last, sad cape-stane of his woes; coping stone (final weight)
Poor Mailie’s dead!
It’s no the loss of warl’s gear, worldly goods
That could sae bitter draw the tear, so
Or mak our Bardie, dowie, wear drooping/gloomy
10 The mourning weed:
He’s lost a friend an’ neebor dear neighbour
In Mailie dead.
Thro’ a’ the toun she trotted by him; town
A lang half-mile she could descry him; long
15 Wi’ kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She ran wi’ speed:
A friend mair faithfu’ ne’er cam nigh him, more, came near
Than Mailie dead.
I wat she was a sheep o’ sense, wot
20 An’ could behave hersel wi’ mense: tact/grace
I’ll say’t, she never brak a fence, broke
Thro’ thievish greed.
Our Bardie, lanely, keeps the spence parlour
Sin’ Mailie’s dead.
25 Or, if he wanders up the howe, glen
Her livin image in her yowe ewe
Comes bleatin till him, owre the knowe, over the