by Robert Burns
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi’ favours, secret, sweet and precious:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories; cobbler told
50 The landlord’s laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle, roar
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle. not
Care, mad to see a man sae happy, so
E’en drown’d himsel amang the nappy: among, ale
55 As bees flee hame wi’ lades o’ treasure, fly home, loads
The minutes wing’d their way wi’ pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious!
But pleasures are like poppies spread,
60 You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white — then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
65 Or like the rainbow’s lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm. —
Nae man can tether time or tide; no, hold/control
The hour approaches Tam maun ride; must
That hour, o’ night’s black arch the key-stane, -stone
70 That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in, such, takes
As ne’er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as ’twad blawn its last; it would have blown
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
75 The speedy gleams the darkness swallow’d;
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow’d: long
That night, a child might understand,
The Deil had business on his hand. devil
Weel mounted on his gray mare, Meg — well
80 A better never lifted leg —
Tam skelpit on thro’ dub and mire, rode fast, puddle
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whyles holding fast his guid blue bonnet; good
Whyles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet; muttering, old
85 Whyles glow’ring round wi’ prudent cares, looking with fear
Lest bogles catch him unawares: bogies
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry. — where ghosts, owls
By this time he was cross the ford, burn
90 Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor’d; where, snow, pedlar, smothered
And past the birks and meikle stane, birches, big stone
Whare drunken Charlie brak’s neck-bane; where, broke his, -bone
And thro’ the whins, and by the cairn, gorse bushes
Whare hunters fand the murder’d bairn; where, found, child
95 And near the thorn, aboon the well, above
Whare Mungo’s mither hang’d hersel. — where, mother
Before him Doon pours all his floods;
The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
100 Near and more near the thunders roll:
When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem’d in a bleeze; blaze/lit up
Thro’ ilka bore the beams were glancing; every chink in the wall
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.
105 Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil; cheap two penny ale, no
Wi’ usquabae, we’ll face the Devil! — whisky
The swats sae ream’d in Tammie’s noddle, small beers, so, mind
110 Fair play, he car’d na deils a boddle. cared not a farthing
But Maggie stood, right sair astonish’d, sore
Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d, spurred and slapped
She ventur’d forward on the light;
And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight! strange/wondrous
115 Warlocks and witches in a dance; wizards
Nae cotillion brent new frae France, no, brand new from
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east, window recess
120 There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast; old
A tousie tyke, black, grim, and large, shaggy dog
To gie them music was his charge: give
He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl, made, blare
Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl. — ring/shake
125 Coffins stood round, like open presses, cupboards
That shaw’d the dead in their last dresses; showed
And by some devilish cantraip sleight, magic trick
Each in its cauld hand held a light. — cold
By which heroic Tam was able
130 To note upon the haly table, holy
A murderer’s banes, in gibbet-airns; bones, -irons
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen’d bairns; two, -long, babies
A thief new-cutted frae a rape, from, rope
Wi’ his last gasp his gab did gape; mouth, gasp
135 Five tomahawks wi’ blude red-rusted; axes, blood
Five scymitars wi’ murder crusted;
A garter, which a babe had strangled;
A knife, a father’s throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o’ life bereft, own
140 The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft;1 stuck, handle
[Three Lawyers’ tongues, turned inside out,
Wi’ lies seamed like a beggar’s clout;
Three Priests’ hearts, rotten black as muck,
Lay stinking, vile, in every neuk]. corner
145 As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d, and curious, stared
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious:
The piper loud and louder blew;
The dancers quick and quicker flew;
They reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleekit, clasped one another
150 Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, every witch, sweated, steamed
And coost her duddies to the wark, cast off clothes, work
And linket at it in her sark! set to it, shirt
Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans, they, girls
A’ plump and strapping in their teens,
155 Their sarks, instead o’ creeshie flannen, shirts, greasy flannel
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen! snow-, fine threaded linen
Thir breeks o’ mine, my only pair, these breeches
That ance were plush, o’ guid blue hair, once, good
I wad hae gi’en them off my hurdies, would have given, backside
160 For ae blink o’ the bonie burdies! one, pretty lasses
But wither’d beldams, auld and droll, hags, old
Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, tough, would, abort
Louping and flinging on a crummock, jumping, cudgel
I wonder did na turn thy stomach. not
165 But Tam kend what was what fu’ brawlie, knew, full well
There was ae winsome wench and wawlie, one comely, choice
That night enlisted in the core,
(Lang after kend on Carrick shore; long, known
For mony a beast to dead she shot, many
170 An’ perish’d mony a bonie boat, many, handsome
And shook baith meikle corn and bear, both much, barley
And kept the country-side in fear).
Her cutty-sark, o’ Paisley harn short shirt, coarse cloth
That while a lassie she had worn,
175 In longitude tho’ sorely scanty, revealing
It was her best, and she was vauntie. — proud of it
Ah! little kend thy reverend grannie, knew
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, shirt, bought
Wi’ twa pund Scots (’twas a’ her riches), two pounds
180 Wad ever grac’d a dance of witche
s! would
But here my Muse her wing maun cour; must fold/curb
Sic flights are far beyond her pow’r; such
To sing how Nannie lap and flang, leaped, kicked
(A souple jad she was, and strang), supple lass, strong
185 And how Tam stood like ane bewitch’d, one
And thought his very een enrich’d; eyes
Even Satan glowr’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain, stared, fidgeted excitedly
And hotch’d and blew wi’ might and main: jerked
Till first ae caper, syne anither, one, then another
190 Tam tint his reason a’ thegither, lost, together
And roars out, ‘Weel done, Cutty-sark!’ well
And in an instant all was dark:
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.
195 As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke, buzz, fret
When plundering herds assail their byke; hive
As open pussie’s mortal foes, a hare’s
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
200 When ‘Catch the thief!’ resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi’ mony an eldritch skriech and hollow. many, unearthly screech
Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairin’! reward/due
In hell they’ll roast thee like a herrin’!
205 In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin’!
Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane of the brig;2 key-stone, bridge
There, at them thou thy tail may toss,
210 A running stream they dare na cross. not
But ere the key-stane she could make, -stone
The fient a tail she had to shake! little of
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest, pressed
215 And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle; aim
But little wist she Maggie’s mettle — was
Ae spring brought off her master hale, one, whole
But left behind her ain grey tail: own
The carlin claught her by the rump, old witch caught
220 And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.
Now, wha this tale o’ truth shall read, who
Ilk man and mother’s son take heed: each
Whene’er to drink you are inclin’d,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind, short shirts/skirts
225 Think! ye may buy the joys o’er dear —
Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare.
Tam o’ Shanter, ‘Burns’s most sustained single poetic effort’, as Daiches rightly comments, was written as a result of Burns being prompted to write a superstitious story for the English antiquarian Francis Grose, to accompany a sketch of Alloway Kirk in his forthcoming Antiquities of Scotland. From the prose evolved the poem, not in a day’s work, as has been foolishly suggested, but over several months of composition and correction. Between the edition printed by Grose and the 1793 edition there are 59 noticeable differences in words and punctuation. An example of reworking is evident in a letter Mrs Dunlop wrote to Burns quoting back to him some lines of what is clearly an early draft:
Kings may be blest, but thou art glorious,
O’er a’ the ills of life victorious;
As bees fly home laden with treasure,
By thee the moment’s winged with pleasure.
But pleasure will not always last;
They’re like the rainbow in the blast:
Awhile it shows its lovely form,
Then vanishes amid the storm…
The narrative tale behind the poem, given above to introduce the poem and explain its origin, reveals the poet’s astonishing skill in translating prose into poetry. As Daiches notes (p. 251):
… showed him a master of verse narrative as no Scots poet had been since the fifteenth century. The speed and verve of the narration, the fine, flexible use of the octosyllabic couplet, the effective handling of the verse paragraph demonstrate a degree of craftmanship that few other users of this verse form have achieved.
Unlike Wordsworth, Burns was not given to narrative poetry of this kind – it is his only example. When, however, Wordsworth tried to get some of the story and comic feel of Tam into The Waggoner it was almost a complete flop. Edwin Muir commented aptly on the poem thus:
‘It is the privilege of poetic genius’ he [Wordsworth] said writing about Tam o’Shanter, ‘to catch, under certain restrictions of which perhaps at the time of its being executed it is but dimly conscious, a spirit of pleasure wherever it can be found – in the walks of nature, and in the business of men’. Burns caught this ‘spirit of pleasure’, and in a poem in which there was not a weak line, not an uncertain intonation, rendered it with a vigour and pliancy which must have astonished himself. He painted corruption in colours so festive and at the time so objective, that his picture had not only a poetic, but a philosophic value (Muir, Uncollected Scottish Criticism, p. 186).
Probably the earliest criticism of Tam is still the most accurate. As early as March 1791, it was apparent to A.F. Tytler that in this tale Burns had ored the purest poetic gold:
Had you never written another syllable, [this poem] would have been sufficient to have tramsmitted your name down to posterity with high reputation. In the introductory part, where you paint the character of your hero, and exhibit him at the ale-house ingle, with his tippling cronies, you have delineated nature with an honour and naivete, that would do honour to Matthew Prior; but when you describe the unfortunate orgies of the witches’ sabbath, and the hellish scenery in which they are exhibited, you display a power of imagination, that Shakespeare himself could not have exceeded (Currie, 1800, Letter CVI, 12th March 1791).
McGuirk’s contextual and textual remarks on the poem in her Selected Poems and Robert Burns and the Sentimental Era are particularly cogent and stimulating.
1 After the word ‘heft’, most editors print ‘Wi’ mair of horrible and awefu’, / Which even to name wad be unlawfu’.’ The original lines written by Burns are placed in square brackets. They were effectively edited out of the 1793 Edinburgh edition on the advice of Alexander Fraser Tytler, who thought them offensive to priests and lawyers.
2 It is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any farther than the middle of the next running stream. It may be proper likewise to mention to the benighted traveller, that when he falls in with bogles, whatever danger may be in his going forward, there is much more hazard in turning back. R.B.
On Seeing a Wounded Hare
limp by me, which a Fellow had Just Shot
First printed in the Edinburgh edition, 1793.
Inhuman man! curse on thy barb’rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye!
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor never pleasure glad thy cruel heart!
5 Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field,
The bitter little that of life remains:
No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.
Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest,
10 No more of rest, but now thy dying bed!
The sheltering rushes whistling o’er thy head,
The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest.
Oft as by winding Nith I, musing, wait
The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn,
15 I’ll miss thee sporting o’er the dewy lawn,
And curse the ruffian’s aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.
This work was written during April of 1789, at Ellisland, after the poet witnessed the shooting of a hare. He wrote to Alexander Cunningham on 4th May 1789:
One morning lately as I was out pretty early in the fields sowing some grass-seeds, I heard the burst of a
shot from a neighbouring Plantation, & presently a poor little wounded hare came crippling by me. – You will guess my indignation at the inhuman fellow, who could shoot a hare at this season when they all of them have young ones; & it gave me no little gloomy satisfaction to see the poor injured creature escape him. Indeed there is something in all that multiform business of destroying for our sport individuals in the animal creation that do not injure us materially, that I could never reconcile to my ideas of native Virtue and eternal Right (Letter 336).
Later in the same letter Burns remarks ‘I am doubtful whether it would not be an improvement to keep out the last stanza but one, altogether’. The dropped stanza develops the idea of the hare’s ‘little nurslings’ being left to fend for themselves alone, without ‘That life a mother only can bestow’ (H & H, Vol. I, Notes, p. 443). Indeed, the same early draft contains the line ‘The cold earth with thy blood-stain’d bosom warm’, evoking a more graphic image of the dying hare’s blood, running warm into the earth. So, in a sense, the final work is the less graphic and personal.
The sentiments expressed to Cunningham reveal again the importance of the poet’s holistic world view on his poetry: he judges all creatures of creation as ‘individuals’ or creatures of God. This is seen in poems such as To A Mouse,
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
And justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion
And fellow mortal!
The real spark of indignation, though, is not that the hare has been shot per se, but that it has been shot out of season. This is mentioned specifically by Burns in the comment ‘the inhuman fellow, who could shoot a hare at this season when they all of them have young ones’. There has always been a rural, country code of those who shoot, that animals are not shot during the period when they are having or rearing young ones. Such behaviour is generally condemned as it is so eloquently here.
Burns partly moderates his outrage when commenting on the poem to Mrs Dunlop, merely to placate the hare-shooting, Major Dunlop: ‘this set my humanity in tears and my indignation in arms…. please read [it] to the young ladies. I believe you may include the Major too, as whatever I have said of shooting hares I have not spoken one irreverent word against coursing them’ (Letter 330). Despite this, it is evident that Burns was opposed to killing ‘game’ for mere sport. The ‘slaughtering guns’ of Westlin Winds remains a telling image.
