I gied thy cog a wee bit heap gave, feed measure
Aboon the timmer: above the rim
I ken’d my Maggie wad na sleep knew, would not
For that, or Simmer. before summer
In cart or car thou never reestet; baulked
80 The steyest brae thou wad hae fac’t it; steepest hill, would have
Thou never lap, an’ sten’t, an’ breastet, leaped, reared
Then stood to blaw; puff for air
But just thy step a wee thing hastet, a little shortened
Thou snoov’t awa. pushed away
85 My Pleugh is now thy bairn-time a’, my plough-team is your offspring
Four gallant brutes as e’er did draw;
Forbye sax mae I’ve sell’t awa, six more, sold away
That thou hast nurst: nursed
They drew me thretteen pund an’ twa, thirteen pound, two
90 The vera warst.
Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought, many, sore day’s work, two, have
An’ wi’ the weary warl’ fought! world
An’ monie an anxious day I thought many
We wad be beat! would
95 Yet here to crazy Age we’re brought,
Wi’ something yet.
An’ think na, my auld trusty Servan’, not, old
That now perhaps thou’s less deservin,
An’ thy auld days may end in starvin; old
100 For my last fow, bushel
A heapet Stimpart, I’ll reserve ane heaped, 8th of a bushel
Laid by for you.
We’ve worn to crazy years thegither; together
We’ll toyte about wi’ ane anither; totter, one another
105 Wi’ tentie care I’ll flit thy tether heedful, change
To some hain’d rig, reserved ground
Whare ye may nobly rax your leather stretch your body
Wi’ sma’ fatigue.
Inevitably, in that now forever lost agrarian world, of all the deep bonds between man and beast, those with horses were the most intimate and profound. Burns’s extraordinary empathy with his horses is everywhere present in his writing and is exemplified by his often naming them as expression of the current state of his own feelings. Thus, for example, the quixotic Rosinante or the disruptively comic, stool-throwing, anti-clerical Jenny Geddes. If Wordsworth needed the rhythmical stimulation of walking to write poetry, Burns discovered more varied, energised rhythms in the saddle. His Excise horse he named Pegasus, that mythical winged icon of poetical creativity. In a sense, however, all his horses had contained these magical energies as can be seen in those astonishing lines (ll. 17–44) of The Epistle to Hugh Parker.
The horse honoured here is not a flyer of that kind, though her young power had allowed her eventually to outpace the lightweight hunters of the gentry in an actual and, hence, political victory. The poem is a deeply moving, heavily vernacularised, monologue by the old man as he parallels the life of his mare and himself. Not the least of Burns’s intentions in the poem is to document the sheer, brutal harshness of the work conditions man and horse had to overcome in order to survive. McGuirk postulates that in part the poem is drawn from Burns’s memories of his father. The poem was probably written in January 1786.
The Cotter’s Saturday Night
Inscribed to R. Aiken, Esq.
First published in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
GRAY.
My lov’d, my honor’d, much respected friend!
No mercenary Bard his homage pays;
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end,
My dearest meed, a friend’s esteem and praise:
5 To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life’s sequester’d scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways,
What Aiken in a Cottage would have been;
Ah! tho’ his worth unknown, far happier there I ween! trust
10 November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh; blows, whistling wind
The short’ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; dirty, from, plough
The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose: crows
The toil-worn COTTER frae his labour goes, from
15 This night his weekly moil is at an end, toil/drudgery
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, a two-mouthed pick
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o’er the moor, his course does hameward bend. homeward
At length his lonely Cot appears in view, cottage
20 Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th’ expectant wee-things, toddlan, stacher through children, totter
To meet their Dad, wi’ flichterin noise and glee. fluttering
His wee bit ingle, blinkan bonilie, fire, burning nicely
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty Wifie’s smile, fireside, wife’s
25 The lisping infant, prattling on his knee,
Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile,
