Page:Alloway Kirk or Tam o Shanter a tale and man was made to mourn a poem with a sketch of burnss life.pdf/13

ALOWAY KIRK, &c.

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WHEN chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak’ the gate:
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
And getting fou and unco happy,
We thinkna on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

This truth fand honest Tam o’ Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter;
(Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses,
For honest men and boney lasses.)

O Tam! hadst thou been but sae wise,
As ta’en thy ain wife Kate’s advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering drunken bellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou wast na sober;
That ilka melder, wi’ the Miller,
Thou sat as long as thou had siller;
That every naig was ca’d a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on;