| TO A LOUSE |
 | TO A LOUSE A woman sits in church wearing a fine hat. She thinks everyone is looking at her because she is beautiful. But Robert Burns has spotted a louse in her hair and the woman doesn’t know it's there. Ava Hickey picks up the story as she recites Burns’ famous poem To a Louse.  To a Louse - the poem |   |
| To a Louse by Robert Burns HA! whare ye gaun, ye crowlan ferlie! Your impudence protects you sairly: I canna say but ye strunt rarely, Owre gawze and lace; Tho faith, I fear ye dine but sparely, On sic a place. Ye ugly, creepan, blastet wonner, Detested, shunn’d, by saunt and sinner, How daur ye set your fit upon her, Sae fine a Lady! Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner, On some poor body. Swith, in some beggar’s haffet squattle; There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle, Wi ither kindred, jumpin cattle, In shoals and nations; Whare horn nor bane ne’er daur unsettle, Your thick plantations. Now haud ye there, ye’re out o sicht, Below the fatt’rels, snug and ticht, Na faith ye yet! ye’ll no be richt, Till ye’ve got on it, The vera tapmost, towrin hicht O Miss’s bonnet. My sooth! richt bauld ye set your nose oot, As plump and gray as onie grozet: O for some rank, mercurial rozet, Or fell, red smeddum, I’d gie you sic a hearty dose o’t, Wad dress your droddum! I wad na been surpriz’d to spy You on an auld wife’s flainen toy; Or aiblins some bit duddie boy, On ’s wylecoat; But Miss’s fine Lunardi, fye! How daur ye do ’t? O Jenny dinna toss your heid, And set your beauties aw abreid! Ye little ken what cursed speed The blastie’s makkin! Thae winks and finger-ends, I dreid, Are notice takkin! O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us Tae see oorsels as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us An’ foolish notion: What airs in dress and gait wad lea us, And ev’n Devotion! |