The World’s Wit and Humor: An Encyclopedia in 15 Volumes. 1906.
Robert Burns (17591796)To a Louse
H
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho’, faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.
Detested, shunn’d by saunt an’ sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner
On some poor body.
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle
Wi’ ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whaur horn nor bane ne’er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.
Below the fatt’rels, snug and tight;
Na, faith ye yet! ye’ll no be right,
Till ye’ve got on it—
The verra tapmost, tow’rin’ height
O’ Miss’s bonnet.
As plump an’ grey as ony grozet:
Oh, for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I’d gie you sic a hearty dose o’t,
Wad dress your droddum!
You on an auld wife’s flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
On’s wyliecoat;
But Miss’s fine Lunardi! fy!
How daur ye do’t?
An’ set your beauties a’ abread!
Ye little ken what curséd speed
The blastie’s makin’:
Thae winks an’ finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin’.
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion.
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
An’ ev’n devotion!