To Miss Ferrier, enclosing Elegy on Sir J. H. Blair
Nae heathen name shall I prefix,
Frae Pindus or Parnassus;
Auld Reekie dings them a to sticks,
For rhyme-inspiring lasses.
Joves tunefu dochters three times three
Made Homer deep their debtor;
But, gien the body half an ee,
Nine Ferriers wad done better!
Last day my mind was in a bog,
Down Georges Street I stoited;
A creeping cauld prosaic fog
My very sense doited.
Do what I dought to set her free,
My saul lay in the mire;
Ye turned a neukI saw your ee
She took the wing like fire!
The mournfu sang I here enclose,
In gratitude I send you,
And pray, in rhyme as weel as prose,
A gude things may attend you!
Poems by Robert Burns
