Robert Burns

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, 

Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race! 

Aboon them a’ ye tak your place, 

Painch, tripe, or thairm: 

Weel are ye wordy of a grace 

As lang’s my arm. 

The groaning trencher there ye fill, 

Your hurdies like a distant hill, 

Your pin wad help to mend a mill 

In time o’ need, 

While thro’ your pores the dews distil 

Like amber bead. 

His knife see rustic Labour dight, 

An’ cut ye up wi’ ready slight, 

Trenching your gushing entrails bright 

Like onie ditch; 

And then, O what a glorious sight, 

Warm-reekin, rich! 

Then, horn for horn, they strech an’ strive: 

Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive, 

Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve, 

Are bent like drums; 

Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive, 

‘Bethankit!’ hums. 

Is there that owre his French ragout 

Or olio that wad staw a sow, 

Or fricassee wad mak her spew 

Wi’ perfect sconner, 

Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view 

On sic a dinner? 

Poor devil! see him owre his trash, 

As feckless as a wither’d rash, 

His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash, 

His nieve a nit; 

Thro’ bluidy flood or field to dash, 

O how unfit! 

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed, 

The trembling earth resounds his tread. 

Clap in his walie nieve a blade, 

He’ll make it whissle; 

An’ legs, an’ arms, an’ heads will sned, 

Like taps o’ thrissle. 

Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care, 

And dish them out their bill o ‘fare, 

Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware 

That jaups in luggies; 

But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer, 

Gie her a Haggis!

Robert Burns

Robert Burns (1759-1796) was the premiere Scottish poet and balladeer, regarded in Scotland with the same reverence as Shakespeare in England—and, like Shakespeare’s creative use of Elizabethan English, Burns’s style is immediately recognizable through his use of colloquial Scottish dialect interwoven into the English of his day. He is celebrated throughout the world on his birthday, Jan. 25, known as Burns Day, with haggis, tripe, and various and sundry malted barley distillations.