Now, gentle readers, I have let
you ken
My very thoughts, from heart and pen,
‘Tis needless for to conten’
Or yet controule,
For there’s not a word o’t I can men’;
So ye must thole.
For on both sides some were not
good;
I saw them murd’ring in cold blood,
Not the gentlemen, but wild and rude,
The baser sort,
Who to the wounded had no mood
But murd’ring sport!
Ev’n both at Preston and
Falkirk,
That fatal night ere it grew mirk,
Piercing the wounded with their durk,
Caused many cry!
Such pity’s shown from Savage and Turk
As peace to die.
A woe be to such hot zeal,
To smite the wounded on the fiell!
It’s just they got such groats in kail,
Who do the same.
It only teaches crueltys real
To them again.
I’ve seen the men call’d
Highland rogues,
With Lowland men make shangs a brogs,
Sup kail and brose, and fling the cogs
Out at the door,
Take cocks, hens, sheep, and hogs,
And pay nought for.
I saw a Highlander,’t was
right drole,
With a string of puddings hung on a pole,
Whip’d o’er his shoulder, skipped
like a fole,
Caus’d Maggy bann,
Lap o’er the midden and midden-hole,
And aff he ran.
When check’d for this, they’d
often tell ye,
’Indeed her nainsell’s a tume belly;
You’ll no gie’t wanting bought, nor
sell me;
Hersell will hae’t;
Go tell King Shorge, and Shordy’s Willie,
I’ll hae a meat.’
I saw the soldiers at Linton-brig,
Because the man was not a
Whig,
Of meat and drink leave not
a skig,
Within
his door;
They burnt his very hat and
wig,
And
thump’d him sore.
And through the Highlands
they were so rude,
As leave them neither clothes
nor food,
Then burnt their houses to
conclude;
’T
was tit for tat.
How can her nainsell e’er
be good,
To
think on that?
And after all, O, shame and
grief!
To use some worse than murd’ring
thief,
Their very gentleman and chief,
Unhumanly!
Like Popish tortures, I believe,
Such
cruelty.
Ev’n what was act on
open stage
At Carlisle, in the hottest
rage,
When mercy was clapt in a
cage,
And
pity dead,
Such cruelty approv’d
by every age,
I
shook my head.
So many to curse, so few to
pray,
And some aloud huzza did cry;
They cursed the rebel Scots
that day,
As
they’d been nowt
Brought up for slaughter,
as that way
Too
many rowt.
Therefore, alas! dear countrymen,
O never do the like again,
To thirst for vengeance, never
ben’
Your
gun nor pa’,
But with the English e’en
borrow and len’,
Let
anger fa’.
Their boasts and bullying,
not worth a louse,
As our King’s the best
about the house.
’T is ay good to be
sober and douce,
To
live in peace;
For many, I see, for being
o’er crouse,
Gets
broken face.
