Happy Robert Burns' Birthday, everybody!

[anarch]

You should all enjoy some whisky, and perhaps a haggis warm reeking, rich wi' champit tatties,
and bashed neeps to celebrate.

Or maybe just the whisky.

[oneighty]

1. Flow gently sweet Afton

Among thy green braes
Flow gently I will sing
Thee a song in thy praise

As I did sing while standing up in front of my third grade class singing the song the teacher made me sing.

My Mary's asleep by
Thy murmuring stream
Flow gently sweet Afton
Disturb not her dreams.

Sigh. From a memory sixty three years old.

180

[anarch]

2. Go fetch to me a pint...

GO fetch to me a pint o wine,
And fill it in a silver tassie;
That I may drink, before I go,
A service to my bonie lassie:
The boat rocks at the Pier o' Leith,
Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry,
The ship rides by the Berwick-law,
And I maun leave my bonie Mary.

The trumpets sound, the banners fly,
The glittering spears are ranked ready,
The shouts o' war are heard afar,
The battle closes deep and bloody.
It's not the roar o' sea or shore,
Wad make me langer wish to tarry;
Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar--
It's leaving thee, my bonie Mary!

[SOteric]

3. Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,

I dearly like the west,
For there the bonie lassie lives,
The lassie I lo'e best:

There's wild-woods grow, and rivers row,
And mony a hill between:
But day and night my fancys' flight
Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair:
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
I hear her charm the air:
There's not a bonie flower that springs,
By fountain, shaw, or green;
There's not a bonie bird that sings,
But minds me o' my Jean.