legend of the country-side. Other details can be filled in from
the poet's own picture of his father's household as given with little
or no idealization in _The Cotter's Saturday Night_.

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT

My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays:
With honest pride I scorn each selfish end,
My dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise:
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
What Aiken in a cottage would have been--
Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween.

November chill blaws load wi' angry sough; [wail]
The shortening winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through [stagger]
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee. [fluttering]
His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnilie, [fire]
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, [worry]
An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil.

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, [Soon]
At service out, amang the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin [drive, heedful run]
A cannie errand to a neibor town: [quiet]
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, [eye]
Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown, [fine]
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, [hard-won wages]
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

With joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet,