Elegy on the Year 1788

Sketch - Elegy on the year 1788

For lords or kings I dinna mourn,
E'en let them die - for that they're born:
But Oh! prodigious to reflect!
A nither year is gane to wreck !
A Towmont, Sirs, is gane to wreck!
O Eighty eight, in thy sma' space
What dire events hae taken place!
Of what Enjoyments thou has reft us!
In what a pickle thou has left us!
The Spanish Empire's lost tint a head,
And my auld teeth less Bawtie's dead!
The tulzie's sair tween Pit & Fox,
And tween out Maggie's twa wee cocks,
The tane is game, a bludie devil
But to the Hen-birds unco civil;
The tither's unco something dour o' treadin,
But better stuff ne'er claw'd a midden.

Ye Ministers come tak mount the poupit,
And cry till ye be haerse & roupet
For Eight eight he wish'd you weel,
And gied ^you a baith gear & meal;
E'en mony a plack & mony a peck,
Ye ken yoursels for little feck
Ye bonie lasses dight your een
For some o' you hae tint a frien;
In Eighty eight, ye ken, was taen,
What ye'll ne'er hae to gie again.-
Observe the vera nowt & sheep
How douf & deviely they creep;
Nay even the yirth itsel does cry,
For Embrugh wells are grutten dry.-
O Eight-nine, thou's but a bairn,
And no o'er auld, I hope to learn!
Thou beardless boy I pray tak care;
Thou now has got thy daddie's chair,
Nae hand-cuff'd, mizzl'd, hap-shackl'd Regent,
But like himsel, a full free agent