Extempore Pinned On A Lady's Couch. by Robert Burns • Sim...

Sketch.

    A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight,
    And still his precious self his dear delight;
    Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets
    Better than e'er the fairest she he meets:
    A man of fashion, too, he made his tour,
    Learn'd vive la bagatelle, et vive l'amour:
    So travell'd monkeys their grimace improve,
    Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies' love.
    Much specious lore, but little understood;
    Veneering oft outshines the solid wood:
    His solid sense, by inches you must tell.
    But mete his cunning by the old Scots ell;
    His meddling vanity, a busy fiend,
    Still making work his selfish craft must mend.

Robert Burns

Deluded Swain, The Pleasure.

I.

    Deluded swain, the pleasure
        The fickle fair can give thee,
    Is but a fairy treasure -
        Thy hopes will soon deceive thee.

II.

    The billows on the ocean,
        The breezes idly roaming,
    The clouds uncertain motion -
        They are but types of woman.

III.

    O! art thou not ashamed
        To doat upon a feature?
    If man thou wouldst be named,
        Despise the silly creature.

IV.

    Go find an honest fellow;
        Good claret set before thee:
    Hold on till thou art mellow,
        And then to bed in glory.

Robert Burns

My Lady

Bedecked in fashion trim,
With every curl a-quiver;
Or leaping, light of limb,
O'er rivulet and river;
Or skipping o'er the lea
On daffodil and daisy;
Or stretched beneath a tree,
All languishing and lazy;
Whatever be her mood -
Be she demurely prude
Or languishingly lazy -
My lady drives me crazy!
In vain her heart is wooed,
Whatever be her mood!

What profit should I gain
Suppose she loved me dearly?
Her coldness turns my brain
To VERGE of madness merely.
Her kiss - though, Heaven knows,
To dream of it were treason -
Would tend, as I suppose,
To utter loss of reason!
My state is not amiss;
I would not have a kiss
Which, in or out of season,
Might tend to loss of reason:
What profit in such bliss?
A ...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Address, Spoken By Miss Fontenelle On Her Benefit Night.

    Still anxious to secure your partial favour,
    And not less anxious, sure, this night than ever,
    A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter,
    'Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better;
    So sought a Poet, roosted near the skies,
    Told him I came to feast my curious eyes;
    Said nothing like his works was ever printed;
    And last, my Prologue-business slyly hinted!
    "Ma'am, let me tell you," quoth my man of rhymes,
    "I know your bent, these are no laughing times:
    Can you, but, Miss, I own I have my fears,
    Dissolve in pause, and sentimental tears;
    With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence,
    Rouse from his sluggish slumbers, fell Repentance;
    Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand,
    Waving on high the des...

Robert Burns

Poem On Life, Addressed To Colonel De Peyster. Dumfries, 1796.

    My honoured colonel, deep I feel
    Your interest in the Poet's weal;
    Ah! now sma' heart hae I to speel
        The steep Parnassus,
    Surrounded thus by bolus, pill,
        And potion glasses.

    O what a canty warld were it,
    Would pain and care and sickness spare it;
    And fortune favour worth and merit,
        As they deserve!
    (And aye a rowth, roast beef and claret;
        Syne, wha wad starve?)

    Dame Life, tho' fiction out may trick her,
    And in paste gems and frippery deck her;
    Oh! flickering, feeble, and unsicker
        I've found her still,
    Ay wavering like the willow-wicker,
        'Tween good and ill.

    Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan,
    Watches, like baudrons by a r...

Robert Burns

Fragment Inscribed To The Right Hon. C.J. Fox.

    How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite;
    How virtue and vice blend their black and their white;
    How genius, th' illustrious father of fiction,
    Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,
    I sing: if these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
    I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle!

    But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory
    At once may illustrate and honour my story.

    Thou first of our orators, first of our wits;
    Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits;
    With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,
    No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong;
    With passions so potent, and fancies so bright,
    No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right;
    A sorry, poor mis...

Robert Burns

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Extempore Pinned On A Lady's Couch.

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