Robert Burns - Poem On Pastoral Poetry lyrics

Hail, Poesie! thou Nymph reserv'd! In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerv'd Frae common sense, or sunk enerv'd 'Mang heaps o' clavers: And och! o'er aft thy joes hae starv'd, 'Mid a' thy favours! Say, La**ie, why, thy train amang, While loud the trump's heroic clang, And sock or buskin skelp alang To d**h or marriage; Scarce ane has tried the shepherd—sang But wi' miscarriage? In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives; Eschylus' pen Will Shakespeare drives; Wee Pope, the knurlin', till him rives Horatian fame; In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives Even Sappho's flame. But thee, Theocritus, wha matches? They're no herd's ballats, Maro's catches; Squire Pope but busks his skinklin' patches O' heathen tatters: I pa** by hunders, nameless wretches, That ape their betters. In this braw age o' wit and lear, Will nane the Shepherd's whistle mair Blaw sweetly in its native air, And rural grace; And, wi' the far-fam'd Grecian, share A rival place? Yes! there is ane—a Scottish callan! There's ane; come forrit, honest Allan! Thou need na jouk behint the hallan, A chiel sae clever; The teeth o' time may gnaw Tantallan, But thou's for ever. Thou paints auld Nature to the nines, In thy sweet Caledonian lines; Nae gowden stream thro' myrtle twines, Where Philomel, While nightly breezes sweep the vines, Her griefs will tell! In gowany glens thy burnie strays, Where bonie la**es bleach their claes, Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes, Wi' hawthorns gray, Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays, At close o' day. Thy rural loves are Nature's sel'; Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell; Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell O' witchin love, That charm that can the strongest quell, The sternest move.