simple board,
The healsome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food;[44]
The soupe[45] their only hawkie[46] does afford,
That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood;[47]
The dame brings forth in complimental mood, 95
To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck, fell;[48]
And aft he's pressed, and aft he ca's it guid;[49]
The frugal wine, garrulous, will tell,
How 't was a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.[50]

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face 100
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace
The big ha'-Bible,[51] ance[52] his father's pride.
His bonnet[53] rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets[54] wearing thin and bare; 105
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,[55]
He wales[56] a portion with judicious care;
And, "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: 110
Perhaps _Dundee's_[57] wild warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive _Martyrs_,[57] worthy of the name;
Or noble _Elgin_[57] beets[58] the heavenward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays.
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; 115
The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise,
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.[59]

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;[60]
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 120
With Amalek's ungracious progeny;[61]
Or, how the royal Bard[62] did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint,[63] and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; 125
Or other holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the Christian volume[64] is the theme:
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay His head; 130
How His first followers and servants sped;[65]
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:[66]
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced
by Heaven's command.[67] 135

Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
The