by Robert Burns
On sic a day! such
But hark! the tent has chang’d its voice;
There’s peace an’ rest nae langer; no longer
120 For a’ the real judges rise,
They canna sit for anger: cannot
Smith opens out his cauld harangues, cold
On practice and on morals;
An’ aff the godly pour in thrangs, off, groups
125 To gie the jars an’ barrels give
A lift that day. to drink
What signifies his barren shine,
Of moral pow’rs an’ reason;
His English style, an’ gesture fine
130 Are a’ clean out o’ season.
Like SOCRATES or ANTONINE,
Or some auld pagan heathen, old
The moral man he does define,
But ne’er a word o’ faith in
135 That’s right that day.
In guid time comes an antidote good
Against sic poison’d nostrum; such, preaching
For Peebles, frae the water-fit, from, mouth of the river
Ascends the holy rostrum:
140 See, up he’s got the Word o’ God,
An’ meek an’ mim has view’d it,
While COMMON-SENSE has taen the road,
An’ aff, an’ up the Cowgate1
Fast, fast that day.
145 Wee Miller niest, the Guard relieves, next
An’ Orthodoxy raibles, recites by rote
Tho’ in his heart he weel believes, well
An’ thinks it auld wives’ fables: old
But faith! the birkie wants a Manse: fellow
150 So, cannilie he hums them; carefully he humbugs
Altho’ his carnal Wit an’ Sense
Like hafflins-wise o’ercomes him almost half-wise
At times that day.
Now butt an’ ben the Change-house fills, every corner of the Ale House
155 Wi’ yill-caup Commentators: ale cup
Here’s crying out for bakes an’ gills, biscuits
An’ there the pint-stowp clatters; pint-jug slams
While thick an’ thrang, an’ loud an’ lang, crowded, long
Wi’ Logic an’ wi’ Scripture,
160 They raise a din, that, in the end noise
Is like to breed a rupture
O’ wrath that day.
Leeze me on Drink! it gies us mair my blessings, gives, more
Than either School or Colledge;
165 It kindles Wit, it waukens Lear, wakens learning
It pangs us fou o’ Knowledge: crams, full
Be’t whisky-gill or penny wheep, small beer costing a penny
Or onie stronger potion, any
It never fails, on drinkin deep,
170 To kittle up our notion, enliven spirits
By night or day.
The lads an’ lasses, blythely bent
To mind baith saul an’ body, both soul
Sit round the table, weel content, well
175 An’ steer about the Toddy: stir
On this ane’s dress, an’ that ane’s leuk, one’s, look
They’re makin observations;
While some are cozie i’ the neuk, cosy, corner
An’ formin assignations
180 To meet some day.
But now the Lord’s ain trumpet touts, own, sounds
Till a’ the hills are rairan, roaring back the echo
And echoes back return the shouts;
Black Russell is na spairan: not sparing
185 His piercin words, like Highlan’ swords,
Divide the joints an’ marrow;
His talk o’ Hell, whare devils dwell, where
Our vera ‘Sauls does harrow’2 very souls
Wi’ fright that day.
190 A vast, unbottom’d, boundless Pit,
Fill’d fou o’ lowan brunstane, full, flaming brimstone
Whase ragin flame, an’ scorchin heat, whose
Wad melt the hardest whun-stane! would, whinstone
The half-asleep start up wi’ fear,
195 An’ think they hear it roaran; roaring
When presently it does appear,
’Twas but some neebor snoran neighbour, snoring
Asleep that day.
’Twad be owre lang a tale to tell, over long
200 How monie stories past; many
An’ how they crouded to the yill, crowded, ale
When they were a’ dismist;
How drink gaed round, in cogs an’ caups, went, wooden jugs, cups
Amang the furms an’ benches; among, a row of seats
205 An’ cheese an’ bread, frae women’s laps, from
Was dealt about in lunches,
An’ dawds that day. large pieces
In comes a gausie, gash Guidwife, jolly, smart, good-
An’ sits down by the fire,
210 Syne draws her kebbuck an’ her knife; then, cheese
The lasses they are shyer:
The auld Guidmen, about the grace, old, good-
Frae side to side they bother; from
Till some ane by his bonnet lays, one, cap
215 An’ gies them’t, like a tether, gives, rope
Fu’ lang that day. long
Waesucks! for him that gets nae lass, Alas!, no
Or lasses that hae naething! have nothing
Sma’ need has he to say a grace,
220 Or melvie his braw claithing! dirty with meal, fine clothes
O Wives, be mindfu’, ance yoursel, once
How bonie lads ye wanted; handsome
An’ dinna for a kebbuck-heel do not, hard cheeese rind
Let lasses be affronted
225 On sic a day! such
Now Clinkumbell,3 wi’ rattlan tow, noisy pull
Begins to jow an’ croon; swing, toll
Some swagger hame the best they dow, home, can
Some wait the afternoon.
230 At slaps the billies halt a blink, a dyke gap, young lads
Till lasses strip their shoon: take off, shoes
Wi’ faith an’ hope, an’ love an’ drink,
They’re a’ in famous tune
For crack that day. talk
235 How monie hearts this day converts many
O’ Sinners and o’ Lasses!
Their hearts o’ stane, gin night, are gane stone, come, gone
As saft as onie flesh is: soft, any
There’s some are fou o’ love divine; full
240 There’s some are fou o’ brandy; full
An’ monie jobs that day begin, many
May end in Houghmagandie sexual intercourse
Some ither day. other
This celebration of the sensual capacity of the Scottish people to resist the worst rhetorical excesses of their clerical masters was written in 1785 and revised in early 1786 for the Kilmarnock edition. As McGuirk notes it is a direct descendent of Fergusson’s Leith Races which itself descends from Milton’s L’Allegro and the nine-line Scottish medieval ‘brawl’ poem:
I dwall amang the caller springs
That weet the Land o’ Cakes,
And aften tune my canty strings
At bridals and late-wakes.
They ca’ me Mirth; I ne’er was kend
To grumble or look sour,
But blyth was be to lift a lend,
Gif ye was sey my pow’r
An’ pith this day.
Fergusson’s poem is, of course, the celebration of a purely secular occasion; Burns is writing a more complex religious satire. Crawford (Burns, A Study of the Poems and Songs, p. 69) places the occasional poem accurately in the long Covenanter-originated Scottish tradition of open-air preaching. This specific event held in Mauchline in 1785 gathered together an audience of 2000 (four times the Mauchline population) of whom 1200 were communicants. Gilbert recorded that his brother was witness to this and had personal knowledge of the preachers he so incisively satirises.
Bur
ns takes his epigraph from Hypocrisy A-La-Mode, a play written in 1704 by Tom Brown. That gale of liberal, satirical, enlightened laughter that runs through eighteenth-century English literature, especially Henry Fielding, as it attempts to sweep away institutionalised religious hypocrisy also blows powerfully through Burns’s writings. He is the major Scottish variant on this anti-clerical Enlightenment project. His Scotland, however, was a darker, more theocratically-controlled state than almost anywhere else in Europe. In his early writing, as here, he senses victory over the savage forces of religious repression. Later, his mood was to darken as he despaired of the unbreakable grip Calvin’s damnation had on the Scottish psyche and, hence, body politic.
This early poem has, however, the comic optimism of Fielding’s Tom Jones rather than the demonic repression of Blake’s The Songs of Experience. The roaring flames of hell here (ll. 190–8) are merely the snores of a fellow pew-member. Unlike Macbeth, who tragically meets three witches on the moor, our comic narrator meets only two, Superstition and Hypocrisy, but their gorgeous sister Fun is an immediately victorious Cinderella and her spirit drives the whole poem. If not promiscuous, Fun is a decidedly erotic young lady as are the young women running barefoot, to save their shoes, towards the thronging excitement and carrying gifts which might be for the satisfaction of appetites other than those of the stomach. Indeed, the whole poem is infused with the way in which the people convert the ‘Occasion’, so clerically defined, into an opportunity for their multiple, but especially sexual, appetites:
O happy is that man an’ blest!
Nae wonder that it pride him!
Whase ain dear lass, that he likes best,
Comes clinkan down beside him!
This echo of Psalm 46 also alerts us to the fact that the rhetorical world of these preachers breeds sexual ills. For example, in 1.116, ‘cantharidian plaisters’ were poultices made from the aphrodisiac Spanish fly.
Burns’s assault on the various masters of pulpit oratory names names in a way that ensured there would be a severe backlash against him. ‘Sawney’ Moodie, with his old-time, ‘Auld-Licht’ undiluted gospel of damnation, is first on stage (ll. 100–17). Moodie (1728–99) was minister of Riccarton near Kilmarnock. He is followed by the ‘New Licht’ George Smith (d. 1823), minister of Galston. McGuirk subtly argues that while Burns is criticising Smith’s rhetorical banality, he is more intent on satirising the congregation whose appetite for hell-fire preaching excludes the life of actual good-works. Smith’s position is then assaulted by William Peebles of Newton-upon-Ayr (1753–1826) who, further inflaming the malign passions of the congregation, drives Common Sense, a central value of the new, more liberal Christianity, from the field. He is succeeded by Alexander Miller (d. 1804) whose professional self-seeking rebounded against him when the parishioners of Kilmaurs subsequently attempted to stop him getting that charge due, he claimed, to the effects of ll. 145–54. The worst is saved to the last. ‘Black’ John Russel (c. 1740–1817) was then minister at Kilmarnock. Subsequently minister at Cromarty, Hugh Miller (My Schools and Schoolmasters) testified to his capacity to terrify, indeed, traumatise his congregation.
Along with such manifestations of theocratic control Burns adds some more overt political commentary. ‘Racer Jess’ is Janet Gibson (d. 1813), who is the daughter of Poosie Nansie, mine hostess of Love and Liberty, is with her like-inclined companions strategically placed beside the laird’s tent. In the same stanza, the ‘Wabster lads/ Blackguarding from Kilmarnock’ probably belong to the weaving community which was deeply and dissidently radical.
The poem moves from a celebration of alcohol (ll. 163–71) and the triumph of this earthy spirit over the one of false sanctimony to a triumphant assertion, implicit throughout the poem, of spontaneous eroticism. The experienced women may already be dealing out more than bread and cheese but, assignations made, loss of virginity happily looms at the poem’s end. As Edwin Muir wrote, regarding the ‘sordid and general tyranny’ of the kirk session: ‘it is only necessary to say that the time-honoured Scottish tradition of fornication triumphantly survived all its terrors’ (John Knox, 1930, pp. 306–7).
1 A street so called, which faces the tent in Mauchline. R.B.
2 Shakespeare’s Hamlet, R.B. [Act I, Sc. 5].
3 The Bell Ringer.
Address to the Deil
First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.
O Prince! O Chief of many thronèd pow’rs!
That led th’ embattl’d seraphim to war —
Milton.
O Thou! whatever title suit thee —
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie — old, cloven-hoofed
Wha in yon cavern grim an’ sootie, who, filled with soot
Clos’d under hatches,
5 Spairges about the brunstane cootie, splashes, brimstone dish
To scaud poor wretches! scald
Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee, old hangman, while
An’ let poor damnèd bodies be;
I’m sure sma’ pleasure it can gie, give
10 Ev’n to a deil, devil
To skelp an’ scaud poor dogs like me hit/slap, scald
An’ hear us squeel!
Great is thy pow’r an’ great thy fame;
Far kend, an’ noted is thy name; known
15 An’ tho’ yon lowan heugh’s thy hame, moaning, hollow, home
Thou travels far;
An’ faith! thou’s neither lag, nor lame, backward
Nor blate nor scaur. bashful, afraid
Whyles, ranging like a roarin lion, sometimes
20 For prey, a’ holes an’ corners tryin;
Whyles, on the strong-wing’d Tempest flyin,
Tirlan the Kirks; stripping – attacking
Whyles, in the human bosom pryin,
Unseen thou lurks.
25 I’ve heard my rev’rend Graunie say, grannie
In lanely glens ye like to stray; lonely
Or, where auld ruin’d castles grey old
Nod to the moon,
Ye fright the nightly wand’rer’s way
30 Wi’ eldritch croon. unearthly eerie moan
When twilight did my Graunie summon, grannie
To say her pray’rs, douce, honest woman! sober/prudent
Aft yont the dyke she’s heard you bumman, away beyond
Wi’ eerie drone;
35 Or, rustlin, thro’ the boortries coman, alder trees coming
Wi’ heavy groan.
Ae dreary, windy, winter night, one
The stars shot down wi’ sklentan light, slanting
Wi’ you mysel, I gat a fright: got
40 Ayont the lough, beyond, loch
Ye, like a rash-buss, stood in sight, bunch of rushes
Wi’ waving sugh: moan
The cudgel in my nieve did shake, fist
Each bristl’d hair stood like a stake;
45 When wi’ an eldritch, stoor quaick, quaick, unearthly harsh, duck quack
Amang the springs, among
Awa ye squatter’d like a drake, away, a noisy take-off
On whistling wings.
Let Warlocks grim, an’ wither’d Hags,
50 Tell how wi’ you, on ragweed nags, ragwort
They skim the muirs an’ dizzy crags, moors, high peaks
Wi’ wicked speed;
And in kirk-yards renew their leagues,
Owre howket dead. over those raised from the grave
55 Thence, countra wives, wi’ toil an’ pain, country
May plunge an’ plunge the kirn in vain; churn
For Och! the yellow treasure’s taen taken
By witching skill;
An’ dawtit, twal-pint Hawkie’s gaen petted, 12-pint cow has gone
60 As yell’s the Bill. dry, bull
Thence, mystic knots mak great abuse
On Young-Guidmen, fond, keen an’ croose; husbands, over confident
When the best warklum i’ the house, work-tool, penis
By
cantraip wit, magic/evil
65 Is instant made no worth a louse,
Just at the bit. stopped before ejaculation
When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord, thawes, snowy hoard
An’ float the jinglin icy boord, water’s surface
Then, Water-kelpies haunt the foord, imaginary water-spirits, ford
70 By your direction,
An’ nighted Trav’llers are allur’d
To their destruction.
An’ aft your moss-traversing Spunkies often, bog-, demons
Decoy the wight that late an’ drunk is: fellow
75 The bleezan, curst, mischievous monkies
Delude his eyes,
Till in some miry slough he sunk is, dirty hole
Ne’er mair to rise. more
When MASONS’ mystic word an’ grip
80 In storms an’ tempests raise you up,
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop, shall
Or, strange to tell!
The youngest Brother ye wad whip would
Aff straught to Hell. off straight
85 Lang syne in Eden’s bonie yard, long ago
When youthfu’ lovers first were pair’d,
An’ all the Soul of Love they shar’d,
The raptur’d hour,
Sweet on the fragrant flow’ry swaird, grassy edge
90 In shady bow’r:
Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog! old, sly door opener
Ye cam to Paradise incog, came, disguised
An’ play’d on man a cursed brogue trick
(Black be your fa’!), fall
95 An’ gied the infant warld a shog, gave, world, shake
’Maist ruin’d a’. almost
D’ye mind that day when in a bizz flurry/bustle
Wi’ reeket duds, an’ reestet gizz, smoky clothes, scorched wig
Ye did present your smoutie phiz smutty face
100 ’Mang better folk;
An’ sklented on the man of Uzz squinted at Job
Your spitefu’ joke?
