VII.
Reading edition
ON A WAG IN MAUCHLINE.
[This laborious and useful wag was the “Dear Smith, thou sleest pawkie thief,” of one of the poet’s finest epistles: he died in the West Indies.]
Lament him, Mauchline husbands a’, He aften did assist ye; For had ye staid whole weeks awa, Your wives they ne’er had missed ye. Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye press To school in bands thegither, O tread ye lightly on his grass,— Perhaps he was your father.