Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116688" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Tam o' Shanter</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke." - Gawin Douglas</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When chapmen billies leave the street,<br>And drouthy neibors, neibors meet,<br>As market days are wearing late,<br>An' folk begin to tak the gate;<br>While we sit bousing at the nappy,<br>And getting fou and unco happy,<br>We think na on the lang Scots miles,<br>The mosses, waters, slaps, and styles,<br>That lie between us and our hame,<br> Where sits our sulky sullen dame.<br>Gathering her brows like gathering storm.<br>Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,<br>As he frae Ayr ae night did canter,<br>(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses<br>For honest men and bonie lasses.)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O Tam! had'st thou but been sae wise,<br>As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!<br>She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,<br>A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;<br>That frae November till October,<br>Ae market-day thou was nae sober;<br>That ilka melder, wi' the miller,<br>Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;<br>That every naig was ca'd a shoe on,<br>The smith and thee gat roaring fou on;<br>That at the L[or]d's house, even on Sunday,<br>Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday.<br>She prophesied that late or soon,<br>Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon;<br>Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,<br>By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,<br>To think how mony counsels sweet,<br>How mony lengthen'd, sage advices,<br>The husband frae the wife despises!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But to our tale:— Ae market-night,<br>Tam had got planted unco right;<br>Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,<br> Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely<br>And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,<br>His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;<br>Tam lo'ed him like a verra brither—<br>They had been fou for weeks thegither!<br>The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter<br>And ay the ale was growing better:<br>The landlady and Tam grew gracious,<br>wi' favours secret, sweet and precious<br>The Souter tauld his queerest stories;<br>The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:<br>The storm without might rair and rustle,<br>Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Care, mad to see a man sae happy,<br>E'en drown'd himsel' amang the nappy!<br>As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,<br>The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure:<br>Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious.<br>O'er a' the ills o' life victorious!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But pleasures are like poppies spread,<br>You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;<br>Or like the snow falls in the river,<br>A moment white—then melts for ever;<br>Or like the borealis race,<br>That flit ere you can point their place;<br>Or like the rainbow's lovely form<br>Evanishing amid the storm.—<br>Nae man can tether time or tide;<br>The hour approaches Tam maun ride;<br>That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,<br> That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;<br>And sic a night he taks the road in<br>As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;<br>The rattling showers rose on the blast;<br>The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd<br>Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd:<br>That night, a child might understand,<br>The Deil had business on his hand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Weel mounted on his gray mare, Meg—<br>A better never lifted leg—<br>Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire;<br>Despisin' wind and rain and fire.<br>Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet;<br>Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet;<br>Whiles glowring round wi' prudent cares,<br>Lest bogles catch him unawares:<br>Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,<br>Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By this time he was cross the ford,<br>Whare, in the snaw, the chapman smoor'd;<br>And past the birks and meikle stane,<br>Whare drunken Chairlie brak 's neck-bane;<br>And thro' the whins, and by the cairn,<br>Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn;<br>And near the thorn, aboon the well,<br>Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel'.--<br>Before him Doon pours all his floods;<br>The doubling storm roars thro' the woods;<br>The lightnings flash from pole to pole;<br>Near and more near the thunders roll:<br>When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees,<br>Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze;<br>Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing;<br>And loud resounded mirth and dancing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!<br>What dangers thou canst make us scorn!<br>Wi' tippeny, we fear nae evil;<br>Wi' usquabae, we'll face the devil!—<br>The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,<br>Fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle.<br>But Maggie stood, right sair astonish'd,<br>Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,<br>She ventured forward on the light;<br>And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Warlocks and witches in a dance;<br>Nae cotillion brent-new frae France,<br>But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,<br>Put life and mettle in their heels.<br>A winnock-bunker in the east,<br> There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;<br>A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,<br>To gie them music was his charge:<br>He scre'd the pipes and gart them skirl,<br>Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.—</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Coffins stood round, like open presses,<br>That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses;<br>And by some develish cantraip slight,<br>Each in its cauld hand held a light.—<br>By which heroic Tam was able<br>To note upon the haly table,<br>A murd'rer's banes in gibbet-airns;<br>Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns;<br>A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,<br>Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape;<br> Five tomahawks, wi blude red-rusted;<br>Five scymitars, wi' murder crusted;<br>A garter, which a babe had strangled;<br>A knife, a father's throat had mangled,<br>Whom his ain son o' life bereft,<br> The gray hairs yet stack to the heft;<br>Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu',<br>Which even to name was be unlawfu'.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">[Three lawyers' tongues, turn'd inside out,<br>Wi' lies seam'd like a beggar's clout;<br> Three priests' hearts, rotten, black as muck,<br>Lay stinking, vile in every neuk.][3]</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As Tammie glowr'd, amaz'd, and curious,<br>The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;<br>The piper loud and louder blew;<br> The dancers quick and quicker flew;<br>They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit,<br>Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,<br>And coost her duddies to the wark,<br>And linket at it in her sark!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans,<br>A' plump and strapping in their teens,<br>Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen,<br>Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linnen!<br>Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair,<br> That ance were plush, o' gude blue hair,<br>I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies,<br>For ae blink o' the bonie burdies!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But wither'd beldams, auld and droll,<br>Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal,<br>Louping and flinging on a crummock,<br>I wonder did na turn thy stomach!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Tam kent what was what fu' brawlie:<br>There was ae winsome wench and waulie,<br>That night enlisted in the core,<br>Lang after kent on Carrick shore;<br>(For mony a beast to dead she shot,<br>And perish'd mony a bonie boat,<br>And shook baith meikle corn and bear,<br>And kept the country-side in fear.)<br> Her cutty-sark, o' Paisley harn<br>That while a lassie she had worn,<br>In longitude tho' sorely scanty,<br>It was her best, and she was vauntie,-<br>Ah! little kent thy reverend grannie,<br>That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,<br>Wi' twa pund Scots, ('twas a' her riches),<br>Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But here my Muse her wing maun cour;<br>Sic flights are far beyond her pow'r;<br>To sing how Nannie lap and flang,<br>(A souple jade she was, and strang),<br>And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch'd,<br>And thought his very een enrich'd;<br>Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain,<br> And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main;<br>Till first ae caper, syne anither,<br>Tam tint his reason ' thegither,<br>And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!"<br>And in an instant all was dark:<br> And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,<br>When out the hellish legion sallied.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,<br>When plundering herds assail their byke;<br>As open pussie's mortal foes,<br> When, pop! she starts before their nose;<br>As eager runs the market-crowd,<br>When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud;<br>So Maggie runs, the witches follow,<br>Wi' mony an eldritch skriech and hollo.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin'!<br>In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'!<br>In vain thy Kate awaits thy commin'!<br>Kate soon will be a woefu' woman!<br>Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,<br> And win the key-stane[4] o' the brig;<br>There at them thou thy tail may toss,<br>A running stream they dare na cross.<br>But ere the key-stane she could make,<br>The fient a tail she had to shake!<br>For Nannie, far before the rest,<br>Hard upon noble Maggie prest,<br>And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;<br>But little wist she Maggie's mettle—<br>Ae spring brought off her master hale,<br> But left behind her ain gray tail;<br>The carlin claught her by the rump,<br>And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No, wha this tale o' truth shall read,<br>Ilk man and mother's son take heed;<br> Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd,<br>Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,<br>Think! ye may buy joys o'er dear,<br>Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare.</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>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116688" data-title="Tam o' Shanter de Robert Burns" data-description=""Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke." - Gawin Douglas/When chapmen billies leave the street,/And drouthy neibors, neibors meet,/As market days are wearing late,/An' folk begin to tak the gate;/While we sit bousing at the nappy,/And gett..."></div>
</div>
</div>