To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life's sequestered scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween. November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh : The shortening winter-day is near a close; 93 Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in, At service out, amang the farmers roun', Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin A cannie errand to a neebor town: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown, Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, The miry beasts retreating frae the To help her parents dear, if they in hard pleugh; ship be. Wi' joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers: The social hours, swift-winged, un noticed fleet; Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears: The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; Anticipation forward points the view. The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. Their masters' an' their mistresses' command, The younkers a' are warned to obey; An' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand, An' ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk or play : "An' O! be sure to fear the Lord alway! |