Address To A Haggis

Good luck to you and your honest, plump face Great chieftain of the sausage race!

Above them all you take your place stomach, tripe, or intestines:

Well are you worthy of a grace as long as my arm.

The groaning trencher there you fill your buttocks like a distant hill,

Your pin would help to mend a mill in time of need,

While through your pores the dews distill like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour wipe and cut you up with ready slight,

Trenching your gushing entrails bright like any ditch;

And then, O what a glorious sight warm steaming, rich!

Then spoon for spoon, the stretch and strive Devil take the hindmost, on they drive,

Till all their well swollen bellies by-and-by are bent like drums;

Then old head of the table, most like to burst the grace!' hums.

Is there that over his French ragout or olio that would sicken a sow,

Or fricassee would make her vomit with perfect disgust,

Looks down with sneering, scornful view on such a dinner?

Poor devil! see him over his trash as feeble as a withered rush,

His thin legs a good whip-lash his fist a nut;

Through bloody flood or field to dash O how unfit.

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed the trembling earth resounds his tread,

Clap in his ample fist a blade He'll make it whistle;

And legs, and arms, and heads will cut off like the heads of thistles.

You powers, who make mankind your care and dish them out their bill of fare,

Old Scotland wants no watery stuff that splashes in small wooden dishes;

But if you wish her grateful prayer Give her a Haggis!