Page:Beauties of Burn's poems.pdf/4

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November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;
The short'ning winter day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning train o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly toil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in case and rest to spend,
And weary, owre the muir, his course does homeward bend.

At length his lonely Cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expecting wee-things, todlin-stachor through
To meet their Dad, wi' flighterin noise and glee.
His w bit ingle blinkin bonnily,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty Wifie's smile,
The lisping infant, prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
And maks him quite forget his labour and his toil.

Relyve the elder bairns come drappin in,
At service out amang the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd; some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neibour town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthful bloom love sparklin in her ee,
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown,
O deposit her sair-won penny-fee,
To help her parcats dear, if they in hardship be.

Wi' joy, unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet,
And each for other's wlefare kindly spiers;
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic d fleet:.
Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears;