Lines on Meeting with Lord Daer^1
This wot ye all whom it concerns,I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns,October twenty-third,
A ne’er-to-be-forgotten day,Sae far I sprackl’d up the brae,I dinner’d wi’ a Lord.
I’ve been at drucken writers’ feasts,Nay, been bitch-fou ’mang godly priests—Wi’ rev’rence be it spoken!—I’ve even join’d the honour’d jorum,When mighty Squireships of the quorum,Their hydra drouth did sloken.
But wi’ a Lord!—stand out my shin,A Lord—a Peer—an Earl’s son!Up higher yet, my bonnetAn’ sic a Lord!—lang Scoth ells twa,Our Peerage he o’erlooks them a’,As I look o’er my sonnet.
But O for Hogarth’s magic pow’r!To show Sir Bardie’s willyart glow’r,An’ how he star’d and stammer’d,When, goavin, as if led wi’ branks,An’ stumpin on his ploughman shanks,He in the parlour hammer’d.
I sidying shelter’d in a nook,An’ at his Lordship steal’t a look,Like some portentous omen;Except good sense and social glee,An’ (what surpris’d me) modesty,I marked nought uncommon.
I watch’d the symptoms o’ the Great,The gentle pride, the lordly state,The arrogant assuming;The fient a pride, nae pride had he,Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see,Mair than an honest ploughman.
Then from his Lordship I shall learn,Henceforth to meet with unconcernOne rank as weel’s another;Nae honest, worthy man need careTo meet with noble youthful Daer,For he but meets a brother.
At the house of Professor Dugald Stewart. ↩