SENT WITH AN ENGRAVING .

Dear sober emptyers o' the glass!
Behold your goddess — wife, or lass,
Deil hae me gin I ken;
But weel I wat, gin a' be true,
That here she speaks, ye select few
Are unco kind o' men!

To me (as frankly in a crack
The ither night the jillet spak
Right cheery owre a glass),
Though hid frae unpoetic brain,
These hieroglyphics speak as plain
As e'er did Balaam's ass.

Ilk sober brither sure has seen
The moon and seven stars at e'en
Glittering in spangled heaven;
What mean than sax? — the meaning's clear, —
Through a' your meetings in the year
Ye're fou sax times in seven,

Na, mair — by yonder horned moon ,
Its clear ye're a' horn-mad as soon
As clocks Beate fix;
Sweet! sweet the sounding warning comes!
And, sitting down on stubborn bums,
Ye a' turn — lunatics.

O! then, 'tis said, in canty croon,
A writer chiel ca'd Livingston,
Wi' crack and snuff grows cheerie;
And dealing round strong punch and joke,
Good-humoured mad, near twa o'clock
Turns a' things tapsilteery!

Here wad I stap, nor langer keek
Into thae soberings ilka week,
And hide what I'm no able;
But you curs'd fingers — up and down,
Proclaim, whan some are in the moon,
Some lie aneth the table.

In these blessed French perverted days,
Whan Virtue's blamed, and Vice gets praise,
And folks wi' words are sae bit,
Nae wonder sober stands for fou ,
And drinkers roar out, while they spew,
" Virtus TANDEM V IGEBAT ."