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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116518" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Death and Doctor Hornbook</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">SOME books are lies frae end to end,<br>And some great lies were never penn’d:<br>Ev’n Ministers they hae been kenn’d,<br>In holy rapture,<br>A rousing whid, at times, to vend,<br>And nail’t wi’ Scripture.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But this that I am gaun to tell,<br>Which lately on a night befel,<br>Is just as true ’s the Deil’s in hell,<br>Or Dublin city:<br>That e’er he nearer comes oursel<br>’S a muckle pity.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Clachan yill had made me canty,<br>I was na fou, but just had plenty;<br>I stacher’d whyles, but yet took tent ay<br>To free the ditches;<br>An’ hillocks, stanes, an’ bushes kenn’d ay<br>Frae ghaists an’ witches.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The rising Moon began to glowr<br>The distant Cumnock hills out-owre;<br>To count her horns, wi’ a’ my pow’r,<br>I set mysel,<br>But whether she had three or four,<br>I cou’d na tell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I was come round about the hill,<br>And todlin down on Willie’s mill,<br>Setting my staff wi’ a’ my skill,<br>To keep me sicker;<br>Tho’ leeward whyles, against my will,<br>I took a bicker.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I there wi’ Something does forgather,<br>That pat me in an eerie swither;<br>An awfu’ scythe, out-owre ae shouther,<br>Clear-dangling, hang;<br>A three-tae’d leister on the ither<br>Lay, large an’ lang.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Its stature seem’d lang Scotch ells twa,<br>The queerest shape that e’er I saw,<br>For fient a wame it had ava,<br>And then its shanks,<br>They were as thin, as sharp an’ sma’<br>As cheeks o’ branks.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">»Guid-een«, quo I; »Friend! hae ye been mawin,<br>When ither folk are busy sawin?«<br>It seem’d to mak a kind o’ stan’,<br>But naething spak;<br>At length, says I, »Friend, whare ye gaun,<br>Will ye go back?«</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It spak right howe – »My name is Death,<br>But be na’ fley’d.« – Quoth I, »Guid faith,<br>Ye’re maybe come to stap my breath;<br>But tent me, billie;<br>I red ye weel, tak care o’ skaith,<br>See, there’s a gully!«</div><div style="margin:10px 0">»Gudeman«, quo’ he, »put up your whittle,<br>I’m no design’d to try its mettle;<br>But if I did, I wad be kittle<br>To be mislear’d,<br>I wad na’ mind it, no that spittle<br>Out-owre my beard.«</div><div style="margin:10px 0">»Weel, weel!« says I, »a bargain be’t;<br>Come, gies your hand, an’ sae we’re gree’t;<br>We’ll ease our shanks an’ tak a seat,<br>Come, gies your news!<br>This while ye hae been mony a gate,<br>At mony a house.«</div><div style="margin:10px 0">»Ay, ay!« quo’ he, an’ shook his head,<br>»It’s e’en a lang, lang time indeed<br>Sin’ I began to nick the thread,<br>An’ choke the breath:<br>Folk maun do something for their bread,<br>An’ sae maun Death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sax thousand years are near hand fled<br>Sin’ I was to the butching bred,<br>And mony a scheme in vain’s been laid,<br>To stap or scar me;<br>Till ane Hornbook’s ta’en up the trade,<br>And faith, he’ll waur me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ye ken Jock Hornbook i’ the Clachan,<br>Deil mak his king’s-hood in a spleuchan!<br>He’s grown sae weel acquaint wi’ Buchan<br>And ither chaps,<br>The weans haud out their fingers laughin,<br>And pouk my hips.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">See, here’s a scythe, and there’s a dart,<br>They hae pierc’d monie a gallant heart;<br>But Doctor Hornbook, wi’ his art<br>And cursed skill,<br>Has made them baith no worth a fart,<br>Damn’d haet they’ll kill!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Twas but yestreen, nae farther gaen,<br>I threw a noble throw at ane;<br>Wi’ less, I’m sure, I’ve hundreds slain;<br>But deil-ma-care!<br>It just play’d dirl on the bane,<br>But did nae mair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hornbook was by, wi’ ready art,<br>And had sae fortify’d the part,<br>That when I looked to my dart,<br>It was sae blunt,<br>Fient haet o’t wad hae pierc’d the heart<br>Of a kail-runt.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I drew my scythe in sic a fury,<br>I nearhand cowpit wi’ my hurry,<br>But yet the bauld Apothecary<br>Withstood the shock;<br>I might as weel hae try’d a quarry<br>O’ hard whin-rock.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ev’n them he canna get attended,<br>Altho’ their face he ne’er had kend it,<br>Just shit in a kail-blade an send it,<br>As soon’s he smells ’t,<br>Baith their disease, and what will mend it,<br>At once he tells’t.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then a’ doctor’s saws and whittles,<br>Of a’ dimensions, shapes, an’ mettles,<br>A’ kinds o’ boxes, mugs, an’ bottles,<br>He’s shure to hae;<br>Their Latin names as fast he rattles<br>As A B C.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Calces o’ fossils, earths, and trees;<br>True Sal-marinum o’ the seas;<br>The Farina of beans and pease,<br>He has’t in plenty;<br>Aqua-fontis, what you please,<br>He can content ye.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Forbye some new, uncommon weapons,<br>Urinus Spiritus of capons;<br>Or Mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings,<br>Distill’d per se;<br>Sal-alkali o’ Midge-tail clippings,<br>And monie mae.«</div><div style="margin:10px 0">»Waes me for Johnny Ged’s-Hole now«,<br>Quoth I, »if that thae news be true!<br>His braw calf-ward whare gowans grew,<br>Sae white an’ bonie,<br>Nae doubt they’ll rive it wi’ the plew;<br>They’ll ruin Johnie!«</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The creature grain’d an eldritch laugh,<br>And says, »Ye needna yoke the pleugh,<br>Kirk-yards will soon be till’d eneugh,<br>Tak ye nae fear:<br>They’ll a’ be trench’d wi’ monie a sheugh,<br>In twa-three year.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whare I kill’d ane, a fair strae-death,<br>By loss o’ blood, or want o’ breath,<br>This night I’m free to tak my aith,<br>That Hornbook’s skill<br>Has clad a score i’ their last claith,<br>By drap and pill.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">An honest Wabster to his trade,<br>Whase wife’s twa nieves were scarce weel-bred,<br>Gat tippence-worth to mend her head,<br>When it was sair;<br>The wife slade cannie to her bed,<br>But ne’er spak mair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A countra Laird had ta’en the batts,<br>Or some curmurring in his guts,<br>His only son for Hornbook sets,<br>And pays him well,<br>The lad, for twa guid gimmer-pets,<br>Was Laird himsel.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">An bonie lass, ye kend her name,<br>Some ill-brewn drink had hov’d her wame,<br>She trusts hersel, to hide the shame,<br>In Hornbook’s care;<br>Horn sent her off to her lang hame,<br>To hide it there.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That’s just a swatch o’ Hornbook’s way,<br>Thus goes he on from day to day,<br>Thus does he poison, kill an’ slay,<br>An’s weel pay’d for’t;<br>Yet stops me o’ my lawfu’ prey,<br>Wi’ his damn’d dirt!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But hark! I’ll tell you of a plot,<br>Tho’ dinna ye be speakin o’t;<br>I’ll nail the self-conceited Sot,<br>As dead’s herrin:<br>Niest time we meet, I’ll wad a groat,<br>He gets his fairin!«</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But just as he began to tell,<br>The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell<br>Some wee, short hour ayont the twal,<br>Which rais’d us baith:<br>I took the way that pleas’d mysel,<br>And sae did Death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Robert+Burns">Robert Burns</a><div class=q>
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