O ye whaare sae guidyoursel’,
Sae pious and saeholy,
Ye’ve nought to do but markand tell
Your neibours’ fauts and folly!
Whaselife is like a weel-gaunmill,
Supplied wi’ store o’ water;
The heaped happer’s ebbing still,
An’still the clapplays clatter.
Hear me, ye venerable core,
As counsel for poor mortals
That frequent pass douceWisdom’s door
For glaikitFolly’s portals:
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,
Would here propone defences-
Their donsietricks, their black mistakes,
Their failings and mischances.
Ye see your state wi’ theirs compared,
And shudder at the niffer;
But cast a moment’s fair regard,
What maks the mighty differ;
Discount what scant occasion gave,
That purity ye pride in;
And (what’s aftmairthan a’the lave),
Your better art o’ hidin.
Think, when your castigated pulse
Gies now and then a wallop!
What ragings must his veins convulse,
That still eternal gallop!
Wi’wind and tide fair i’ your tail,
Right on ye scud your sea-way;
But in the teeth o’ baithto sail,
It maks a uncolee-way.
See Social Life and Glee sit down,
All joyous and unthinking,
Till, quite transmugrified, they’re grown
Debauchery and Drinking:
O would they stay to calculate
Th’ eternal consequences;
Oryour more dreaded hell to state,
Damnation of expenses!
Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,
Tied up in godly laces,
Before ye giepoor Frailty names,
Suppose a change o’cases;
A dear-lov’d lad, convenience snug,
A treach’rous inclination-
But let me whisper i’your lug,
Ye’re aiblinsnaetemptation.
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho’ they may ganga kenninwrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark, –
The moving Why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.
Who made the heart, ’tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance let’s be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What’s done we partly may compute,
Butknow not what’s resisted.