To a Mouse (The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men) / John Barleycorn / Farewell to the Highlands

 

Robert Burns, 1759-1796

 “Many and sharp the num’rous ills   

Inwoven with our frame!   

More pointed still we make ourselves, 

Regret, remorse, and shame! 

And man, whose heav’n-erected face 

The smiles of love adorn, —  

Man’s inhumanity to man   

Makes countless thousands mourn!

Robert Burns, from Man was made to Mourn - A Dirge

To a Mouse

Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie, 

O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! 

Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 

               Wi’ bickering brattle! 

I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee, 

               Wi’ murd’ring pattle! 

I’m truly sorry man’s dominion, 

Has broken nature’s social union, 

An’ justifies that ill opinion, 

               Which makes thee startle 

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, 

               An’ fellow-mortal! 

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; 

What then? poor beastie, 

thou maun live! 

A daimen icker in a thrave 

               ‘S a sma’ request; 

I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave, 

                An’ never miss’t! 

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! 

It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin! 

An’ naething, now, to big a new ane, 

                O’ foggage green! 

An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin, 

                Baith snell an’ keen! 

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste, 

An’ weary winter comin fast, 

An’ cozie here, beneath the blast, 

                Thou thought to dwell—

Till crash! the cruel coulter past 

                 Out thro’ thy cell. 

That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble, 

Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! 

Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble, 

                 But house or hald, 

To thole the winter’s sleety dribble, 

                 An’ cranreuch cauld! 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, 

In proving foresight may be vain; 

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men 

                 Gang aft agley, 

An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, 

                  For promis’d joy! 

Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me 

The present only toucheth thee: 

But, Och! I backward cast my e’e. 

                   On prospects drear! 

An’ forward, tho’ I canna see, 

                   I guess an’ fear!

Robert Burns, 1785

A Red, Red Rose, 1795

O my love is like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June.

O my love is like the melody

That's sweetly played in tune.

 As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in love am I,

And I will love thee still, my dear,

Till a' the seas gang dry.

 Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi' the sun;

And I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.

 And fare thee well, my only love,

And fare thee well awhile!

And I will come again, my love,

Though it were ten thousand mile!

Smithsonian magazine

Farewell to the Highlands (Song) Tune—“Failte na Miosg.” 

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, 

The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;

Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, 

The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. 

Chorus.—

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here, 

My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer; 

Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe, 

My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go. 

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover’d with snow, 

Farewell to the straths and green vallies below; 

Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods, 

Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. 

Chorus.—

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;

Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,

My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.

John Barleycorn: A Ballad

There was three kings into the east, 

Three kings both great and high, 

And they hae sworn a solemn oath 

John Barleycorn should die. 

They took a plough and plough’d him down, 

Put clods upon his head, 

And they hae sworn a solemn oath 

John Barleycorn was dead. 

But the cheerful Spring came kindly on, 

And show’rs began to fall; 

John Barleycorn got up again, 

And sore surpris’d them all. 

The sultry suns of Summer came, 

And he grew thick and strong; 

His head weel arm’d wi’ pointed spears, 

That no one should him wrong. 

The sober Autumn enter’d mild, 

When he grew wan and pale; 

His bending joints and drooping head 

Show’d he began to fail. 

His colour sicken’d more and more, 

He faded into age; 

And then his enemies began 

To show their deadly rage. 

They’ve taen a weapon, long and sharp, 

And cut him by the knee; 

Then tied him fast upon a cart, 

Like a rogue for forgerie. 

They laid him down upon his back, 

And cudgell’d him full sore; 

They hung him up before the storm, 

And turned him o’er and o’er. 

They filled up a darksome pit 

With water to the brim; 

They heaved in John Barleycorn, 

There let him sink or swim. 

They laid him out upon the floor, 

To work him farther woe; 

And still, as signs of life appear’d, 

They toss’d him to and fro. 

They wasted, o’er a scorching flame, 

The marrow of his bones; 

But a miller us’d him worst of all, 

For he crush’d him between two stones. 

And they hae taen his very heart’s blood, 

And drank it round and round; 

And still the more and more they drank, 

Their joy did more abound. 

John Barleycorn was a hero bold, 

Of noble enterprise; 

For if you do but taste his blood, 

‘Twill make your courage rise. 

‘Twill make a man forget his woe; 

‘Twill heighten all his joy; 

‘Twill make the widow’s heart to sing, 

Tho’ the tear were in her eye. 

Then let us toast John Barleycorn, 

Each man a glass in hand; 

And may his great posterity 

Ne’er fail in old Scotland! 

Robert Burns, 1783

Alcohol tells truth, but its truth is not normal. What is normal is healthful. What is healthful tends toward life. Normal truth is a different order, and a lesser order, of truth. Take a dray horse. Through all the vicissitudes of its life, from first to last, somehow, in unguessably dim ways, it must believe that life is good; that the drudgery in harness is good; that death, no matter how blind-instinctively apprehended, is a dread giant; that life is beneficent and worth while; that, in the end, with fading life, it will not be knocked about and beaten and urged beyond its sprained and spavined best; that old age, even, is decent, dignified, and valuable, though old age means a ribby scare-crow in a hawker's cart, stumbling a step to every blow, stumbling dizzily on through merciless servitude and slow disintegration to the end—the end, the apportionment of its parts (of its subtle flesh, its pink and springy bone, its juices and ferments, and all the sensateness that informed it) to the chicken farm, the hide-house, the glue-rendering works, and the bone-meal fertiliser factory. To the last stumble of its stumbling end this dray horse must abide by the mandates of the lesser truth that is the truth of life and that makes life possible to persist. This dray horse, like all other horses, like all other animals, including man, is life-blinded and sense-struck. It will live, no matter what the price. The game of life is good, though all of life may be hurt, and though all lives lose the game in the end. This is the order of truth that obtains, not for the universe, but for the live things in it if they for a little space will endure ere they pass. This order of truth, no matter how erroneous it may be, is the sane and normal order of truth, the rational order of truth that life must believe in order to live. To man, alone among the animals, has been given the awful privilege of reason. Man, with his brain, can penetrate the intoxicating show of things and look upon the universe brazen with indifference toward him and his dreams. He can do this, but it is not well for him to do it. To live, and live abundantly, to sting with life, to be alive (which is to be what he is), it is good that man be life-blinded and sense-struck. What is good is true. And this is the order of truth, lesser though it be, that man must know and guide his actions by with unswerving certitude that it is absolute truth and that in the universe no other order of truth can obtain. It is good that man should accept at face value the cheats of sense and snares of flesh and through the fogs of sentiency pursue the lures and lies of passion. It is good that he shall see neither shadows nor futilities, nor be appalled by his lusts and rapacities. And man does this. Countless men have glimpsed that other and truer order of truth and recoiled from it. Countless men have passed through the long sickness and lived to tell of it and deliberately to forget it to the end of their days. They lived. They realised life, for life is what they were. They did right. And now comes John Barleycorn with the curse he lays upon the imaginative man who is lusty with life and desire to live. John Barleycorn sends his White Logic, the argent messenger of truth beyond truth, the antithesis of life, cruel and bleak as interstellar space, pulseless and frozen as absolute zero, dazzling with the frost of irrefragable logic and unforgettable fact. John Barleycorn will not let the dreamer dream, the liver live. He destroys birth and death, and dissipates to mist the paradox of being, until his victim cries out, as in "The City of Dreadful Night": "Our life's a cheat, our death a black abyss." And the feet of the victim of such dreadful intimacy take hold of the way of death...

earlier London described his first impressions of saloons as a boy...

“I liked saloons. Especially I liked the San Francisco saloons. They had the most delicious dainties for the taking—strange breads and crackers, cheeses, sausages, sardines—wonderful foods that I never saw on our meagre home-table. And once, I remember, a barkeeper mixed me a sweet temperance drink of syrup and soda-water. My father did not pay for it. It was the barkeeper's treat, and he became my ideal of a good, kind man. I dreamed day-dreams of him for years. Although I was seven years old at the time, I can see him now with undiminished clearness, though I never laid eyes on him but that one time. The saloon was south of Market Street in San Francisco. It stood on the west side of the street. As you entered, the bar was on the left. On the right, against the wall, was the free lunch counter. It was a long, narrow room, and at the rear, beyond the beer kegs on tap, were small, round tables and chairs. The barkeeper was blue-eyed, and had fair, silky hair peeping out from under a black silk skull-cap. I remember he wore a brown Cardigan jacket, and I know precisely the spot, in the midst of the array of bottles, from which he took the bottle of red-coloured syrup. He and my father talked long, and I sipped my sweet drink and worshipped him. And for years afterward I worshipped the memory of him. Despite my two disastrous experiences, here was John Barleycorn, prevalent and accessible everywhere in the community, luring and drawing me. Here were connotations of the saloon making deep indentations in a child's mind. Here was a child, forming its first judgments of the world, finding the saloon a delightful and desirable place. Stores, nor public buildings, nor all the dwellings of men ever opened their doors to me and let me warm by their fires or permitted me to eat the food of the gods from narrow shelves against the wall. Their doors were ever closed to me; the saloon's doors were ever open. And always and everywhere I found saloons, on highway and byway, up narrow alleys and on busy thoroughfares, bright-lighted and cheerful, warm in winter, and in summer dark and cool. Yes, the saloon was a mighty fine place, and it was more than that...

In the saloons life was different. Men talked with great voices, laughed great laughs, and there was an atmosphere of greatness. Here was something more than common every-day where nothing happened. Here life was always very live, and, sometimes, even lurid, when blows were struck, and blood was shed, and big policemen came shouldering in. Great moments, these, for me, my head filled with all the wild and valiant fighting of the gallant adventurers on sea and land. There were no big moments when I trudged along the street throwing my papers in at doors. But in the saloons, even the sots, stupefied, sprawling across the tables or in the sawdust, were objects of mystery and wonder...

Jack London (1876-1916), from John Barleycorn