75] black, grim, and large;
To gi'e them music was his charge:
He screwed the pipes and gart them skirl,[76]
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl![77]
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That shawed the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantrip[78] slight,
Each in its cauld hand held a light,
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table
A murderer's banes in gibbet airns;[79]
Twa span-lang, wee unchristened bairns;
A thief new-cutted frae a rape,
Wi' his last gasp his gab[80] did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted;
Five scimitars wi' murder crusted;
A garter which a babe had strangled;
A knife a father's throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o' life bereft--
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft:
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu',
Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'.

As Tammie glow'red,[81] amazed and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious:
The piper loud and louder blew;
The dancers quick and quicker flew;
They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit,[82]
Till ilka carlin[83] swat and reekit,[84]
And coost[85] her duddies[86] to the wark,
And linket[87] at it in her sark![88]

Now Tam, O Tam! had they been queans
A' plump and strapping, in their teens;
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen,[89]
Been snaw-white seventeen-hunder linen[90],
Thir breeks[91] o' mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair,
I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies,
For ane blink o' the bonnie burdies!

But withered beldams old and droll,
Rigwoodie[92] hags wad spean[93] a foal,
Lowping and flinging on a crummock,[94]
I wonder didna turn thy stomach.

But Tam kenned what was what fu' brawlie:
"There was ae winsome wench and walie,"[95]
That night inlisted in the core
(Lang after kenned on Carrick shore!
For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perished mony a bonnie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,[96]
And kept the country-side in fear),
Her cutty sark,[97] o' Paisley harn,[98]
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude though sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.[99]
Ah! little kenned thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft[100] for her wee Nannie,
Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches),
Wad ever graced a