As Tammie glowr'd, amazed and curious, The mirth and fun grew fast and furious:

The piper loud and louder blew;

The dancers quick and quicker flew;

They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit,

But Tam kend what was what fu' brawlie,

There was ae winsome wench and walie,

[choice

That night enlisted in the core,

[corps

(Lang after kend on Carrick shore;

For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perished mony a bonie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the country-side in fear),
Her cutty sark, o' Paisley harn,
That, while a lassie, she had worn,
In longitude tho' sorely scanty,

[barley

[short, coarse linen

It was her best, and she was vauntie.—
Ah! little kend thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi' twa pund Scots, ('twas a' her riches,)
Wad ever grace a dance of witches!

But here my muse her wing maun cour;
Sic flights are far beyond her power;

To sing how Nannie lap and flang

(A souple jade she was, and strang),
And how Tam stood, like ane bewitched,

[bought

And thought his very een enriched;

Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain,

And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main;

Till first ae caper, syne anither,

[then

Tam tint his reason a' thegither,

[lost

And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!"

And in an instant all was dark;

And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,

When out the hellish legion sallied.

As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,

When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie's mortal foes,

When, pop! she starts before their nose;

[bustle

[hive

.

As eager runs the market-crowd,

When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi' monie an eldritch skreech and hollo.

Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin

In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin !
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin !
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane* of the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they darena cross.
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie pressed,
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie's mettle-
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain gray tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.
Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother's son, tak heed;
Whene'er to drink you are inclined,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear,
Remember Tam O'Shanter's mare.

[frightful

[deuce (fiend)

[aim

* Witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any farther than the middle of the next running stream.

CONTRADICTORY readings may be taken

of Byron's character and achievements, and each of them be largely true. That he owned true genius, brilliant and forceful, is indisputable, and yet he would trail it in the mire for the sake of a cynical laugh. No poet was moved by intenser passion for the good and the beautiful, and none so lightly prostituted it to baser ends. His heart beat ardently with generous, noble, and even self-sacrificing impulses; yet it could harden at will into adamantine selfishness, morose hatred of his species, expressed in brutish acts. Byron's poetry is Byron himself, thoroughly romantic, dazzlingly bright and beautiful when soaring free above the contaminations of the sodden camping ground, and proportionately morbid and miserable as he sinks by his own weight to that malarious level.

George Noel Gordon Byron was born in London in 1788. His profligate father, known as "Mad Jack Byron" of the Guards, after wasting his wife's fortune, deserted her, and died, leaving mother and child with only a small fixed income of about £120 a year. Mrs. Byron was a passionate creature, caressing the beautiful, little lame boy one moment, and beating him the next. At the age of ten Byron inherited his title from a grand-uncle, William, Lord Byron, with the encumbered estate of Newstead Abbey. He went to Harrow and to Cambridge, but was, in both places, an idle and irregular student, refusing to pursue the usual studies of the college curriculum; but reading English literature and every history he could lay his hands on, in the intervals of riding, fencing, boxing, drinking, gaming and the like.