Bobbies Statue

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 Scottys Ghost! is that you?     And did you see the fearsome crowd     At Bobbie Burnss 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 Scotlans Bard,     They glibly talked of Rabby;     But what if he had come to them     Without a groat and shabby?     They drank and wept for Rabbies sake,     They stood and brayed like asses     (The living bards a drunken rake,     The dead one loved the lasses);     If Bobbie Burns were here, theyd sit     As still as any mouse is;     If Bobbie Bums should come their way,     Theyd turn him out their houses.     O weep for bonny Scotlands 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 were alive     With praise insult our ashes.     And Scottys 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 poets name     Shall crawl through all the ages;     His works the living thing, and they     Are fly-dirt on the pages.