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| HEALTH to the Maxwell’s veteran Chief! | |
| Health, aye unsour’d by care or grief: | |
| Inspir’d, I turn’d Fate’s sibyl leaf, | |
| This natal morn, | |
| I see thy life is stuff o’ prief, | 5 |
| Scarce quite half-worn. | |
| |
| This day thou metes threescore eleven, | |
| And I can tell that bounteous Heaven | |
| (The second-sight, ye ken, is given | |
| To ilka Poet) | 10 |
| On thee a tack o’ seven times seven | |
| Will yet bestow it. | |
| |
| If envious buckies view wi’ sorrow | |
| Thy lengthen’d days on this blest morrow, | |
| May Desolation’s lang-teeth’d harrow, | 15 |
| Nine miles an hour, | |
| Rake them, like Sodom and Gomorrah, | |
| In brunstane stour. | |
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| But for thy friends, and they are mony, | |
| Baith honest men, and lassies bonie, | 20 |
| May couthie Fortune, kind and cannie, | |
| In social glee, | |
| Wi’ mornings blythe, and e’enings funny, | |
| Bless them and thee! | |
| |
| Fareweel, auld birkie! Lord be near ye, | 25 |
| And then the deil, he daurna steer ye: | |
| Your friends aye love, your faes aye fear ye; | |
| For me, shame fa’ me, | |
| If neist my heart I dinna wear ye, | |
| While Burns they ca’ me. | 30 |
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