Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/424

408 CRITICAL STUDIES But now I'm turn'd a hirplin carle, My back it's ta'en the cobbler's swirl, And deil a bodle I need birl For cuttin' o' my hair. " On Boswell's green was nane like me ; My hough was firm, my foot was free ; The locks that clustered o'er my bree Cost many a hizzie sair. The days are come I'm no sae crouse — An ingle-cheek— a cogie douce. An' fash nae shears about the house Wi' cuttin' o' my hair. " It was an awfu' head, I trow, It waur'd baith young and old to cow. An' burnin' red as heather-Iowe, Gar'd neeboors start and stare. The mair ye cut the mair it grew. An' aye the fiercer flamed its hue — I in my time hae paid enew For cuttin' o' my hair." He first began to write verses in the spring of 1 796, and for several years composed only songs and ballads for the lassies to sing in chorus ; and proud he was to hear them sung, and himself saluted as " Jamie the poeter." " I had no more difficulty in composing songs then than I have at present, and I was equally well pleased with them. But then the writing of them — that was a job ! I had no method of learning to write, save by following the Italian alphabet ; and, though I always stripped myself of coat and vest when I began to pen a song, yet my wrist took a cramp, so that I could rarely make above five or six lines at a sitting. Having very little time to spare from my flock, which was unruly enough, I folded and stitched