Raise a Wee Dram Wi’ Us, Will Ye?
And celebrate Burns Night.
Long life, my Lord, an’ health be yours,
Unskaithed by hunger’d Highland boors;
Lord grant me nae duddie, desperate beggar,
Wi’ dirk, claymore, and rusty trigger,
May twin auld Scotland o’ a life
She likes-as butchers like a knife.
Happy Birth Bardday, old man.
Fun, Littrachure | tree hugging sister | 
January 25, 2010 7:42 pm
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Why, that is more than reason enough to breakout the McCallan. Well Mr B. what ays you?
I suppose someone can understand that, but not me.
Indeed, Sir, that is reason enough.
Ah, wee Bobbie Bairns
Have some haggis while you’re at it. (And on an unrelated topic, can I request more dog pics? Your Lab is SO CUTE.)
Thanks, Doc! He is awfully cute…for a mooching snoring schweet dope 🙂
Seriously, what is Burns talking about?
It sounds to me as though there were alot of thieves and rebels in the highlands that didn’t respect authority.
Burns was playing boths sides of the issue.But,I’m still working on miodern English.Mary Queen of Scots era semi’English is too tough for me.
I finally looked it up. The name of the poem is “Address of Beelzebub.”
It seems the Brits made a law making it extremely expensive to emigrate to Canada (in the 1780’s) by putting a huge tax on passage aboard ships. This is because the population of Scotland was falling dramatically from emigration. And that was because of some burdensome laws that displaced people from the land in favor of sheep. Or something like that.
So, the devil is toasting the politicians that made these laws and looks forward to meeting them in person.
You’d have to know the contemporary politics to understand this poem, and then the very difficult English makes it mostly incomprehensible otherwise.
Good work, Skyler! Knew you’d figure it out if we left you alone. An’ it’s nae the ‘difficult English’ sae much as the grammatical influence of Gaelic syntax in Highland Scottish wha’s got yer haggis addled.
Doncha know.