To William Stewart
Brownhill Monday even:
Dear Sir,
In honest Bacon's ingle-neuk,
Here maun I sit and think;
Sick o' the warld and warld's fock,
And sick, damned sick o' drink!
I see, I see there is nae help,
But still down I maun sink;
Till some day, laigh enough, I yelp,
'Wae worth that cursed drink!'
Yestreen, alas! I was sae fu',
I could but yisk and wink;
And now, this day, sair, sair I rue,
The weary, weary drink.
Satan, I fear thy sooty claws,
I hate thy brunstane stink,
And ay I curse the luckless cause,
The wicked soup o' drink.
In vain I would forget my woes
In idle rhyming clink,
For past redemption damn'd in Prose
I can do nought but drink.
For you, my trusty, well-try'd friend,
May Heaven still on you blink;
And may your life flow to the end,
Sweet as a dry man's drink!
Rabbie Burns
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Works read by Dougray Scott—The works of Robert Burns
All his recordings from the 250th anniversary project.
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