Jean! Jean! Gin she’s no’ here it’s no’ oor bed,
Or else I’m dreamin’ deep and canna wauken,
But it’s a fell queer dream if this is no’
A real hillside—and thae things thistles and bracken!

It’s hard wark haud’n by a thocht worth ha’en’
And harder speakin’t, and no’ for ilka man;
Maist Thocht’s like whisky—a thoosan’ under proof,
And a sair price is pitten on’t even than.

As Kirks wi’ Christianity ha’e dune,
Burns’ Clubs wi’ Burns—wi’ a’thing it’s the same,
The core o’ ocht is only for the few,
Scorned by the mony, thrang wi’ts empty name.

And a’ the names in History mean nocht
To maist folk but “ideas o’ their ain,”
The vera opposite o’ onything
The Deid ’ud awn gin they cam’ back again.

A greater Christ, a greater Burns, may come.
The maist they’ll dae is to gi’e bigger pegs
To folly and conceit to hank their rubbish on.
They’ll cheenge folks’ talk but no their natures, fegs!

I maun feed frae the common trough ana’
Whaur a’ the lees o’ hope are jumbled up;
While centuries like pigs are slorpin’ owre’t
Sall my wee ’oor be cryin’: “Let pass this cup?”

In wi’ your gruntle then, puir wheengin’ saul,
Lap up the ugsome aidle wi’ the lave,
What gin it’s your ain vomit that you swill
And frae Life’s gantin’ and unfaddomed grave?

I doot I’m geylies mixed, like Life itsel’,
But I was never ane that thocht to pit
An ocean in a mutchkin. As the haill’s
Mair than the pairt sae I than reason yet.

I dinna haud the warld’s end in my heid
As maist folk think they dae; nor filter truth
In fishy gills through which its tides may poor
For ony animalculæ forsooth.

I lauch to see my crazy little brain
—And ither folks’—tak’n itsel’ seriously,
And in a sudden lowe o’ fun my saul
Blinks dozent as the owl I ken’t to be.

I’ll ha’e nae hauf-way hoose, but aye be whaur
Extremes meet—it’s the only way I ken
To dodge the curst conceit o’ bein’ richt
That damns the vast majority o’ men.

from A Drunk Man Looks at Throbbing Thistle