Classic Poem

Grown tired of mourning for my sins —
And brooding over merits —
The other night with aching heart
I went amongst the spirits;
And I met one that I knew well:
" O Scotty's Ghost! is that you?
And did you see the fearsome crowd
At Bobbie Burns's statue?

" They hurried up in hansom cabs,
Tall-hatted and frock-coated;
They trained it in from all the towns,
The weird and hairy-throated;
They spoke in some outlandish tongue,
They cut some comic capers,
And ilka man was wild to get
His name in all the papers.

" They showed no sign of intellect,
Those frauds who rushed before us;
They knew one verse of " Auld Lang Syne" —
The first one and the chorus.
They clacked the clack o' Scotlan' 's Bard,
They glibly talked of " Rabby";
But what if he had come to them
Without a groat and shabby?

" They drank and wept for Rabbie's sake,
They stood and brayed like asses
(The living bard's a drunken rake —
The dead one loved the lasses);
If Bobbie Burns were here, they'd sit
As still as any mouse is;
If Bobbie Burns should come their way,
They'd turn him out their houses.

" O weep for bonny Scotland's Bard!
And praise the Scottish nation,
Who made him spy and let him die
Heart-broken in privation:
Exciseman, so that he might live
Through northern winters' rigours —
Just as in southern lands they give
The hard-up rhymer figures.

" We need some songs of stinging fun
To wake the States and light 'em;
I wish a man like Robert Burns
Were here to-day to write 'em!
But still the mockery shall survive
Till Day o'Judgement crashes —
The men we scorn when we're alive
With praise insult our ashes. "

And Scotty's Ghost said: " Never mind
The fleas that you inherit;
The living bard can flick 'em off —
They cannot hurt his spirit.
The crawlers round the poet's name
Shall crawl through all the ages;
His work's the living thing, and they
Are fly-dirt on the pages. "