Gearóid Mac Cuinneagáin wrote:

from:  An Irishman's Diary
Pól Ó Muirí

[snip]

Take, for example, the work of the Scottish poet Robbie Burns. His verses were part and parcel of the cultural fabric of the Donegal Gaeltacht since the beginning of this century.

Thank you Gerard for posting Pól Ó Muirí's wonderful article. I do not intend to take up the political themes in the article, which are important, and well presented.  I do wish to endorse the importance the Scottish culture to us all in Ireland, and to draw attention to the poet and true humanist, Robbie Burns, in what is, after all, supposed to be a cultural newsgroup. Burns is, in my view, one of the greatest poets of these islands.

I offer you all the following poem:

Thou's welcome, wean! Mischanter fa' me,
If ought of thee or yet thy mammie,
Shall ever daunton me, or awe me,
My sweet, wee lady,
Or if I blush when thou shalt ca' me
Tyta or daddie!

What tho' they ca' me fornicator,
An' tease my name in kintra clatter:
The mair they talk, I'm kend the better,
E'en let them clash!
An auld wife's tongue's a feckless matter
To gie ane fash.

Welcome my bonnie, sweet, wee dochter!
Though ye come here a wee unsought for,
And tho your comin I hae fought for,
Both kirk and queir;
Yet, by my faith, ye're no unwrought for -
That I shall swear.

Sweet fruit o' mony a merry dint,
My funny toil is no a' tint,
Sin' thou cam to the warl' asklent,
Which fools may scoff at;
In my last plack thy part's be in't
The better half o't.

Tho I should be the waur bestead,
Thou's be as braw and bienly clad,
And thy young years as nicely bred
Wi' education,
As onie brat o wedlock's bed,
In a' thy station.

Wee image of my bonnie Betty,
I, fatherly, will kiss and daut thee,
And dear and near my heart I set thee
Wi' as guid will,
As all the priests had seen me get thee
That's out o' Hell.

Gude grant that thou may aye inherit
Thy mother's looks an gracefu merit,
An' thy poor, worthless daddy's spirit,
Without his failin's!
'Twill please me mair to see thee heir it,
Than stockit mailens.

And if thou be what I wad hae thee,
And tak' the counsel I shall gie thee
I'll never rue my trouble wi thee -
The cost nor shame o't -
But be a loving father to thee,
And brag the name o't.

(If anyone needs a glossary of terms to understand the poem, just ask, and I will post it. This poem followed the birth of Elizabeth Burns, his daughter by Elizabeth Paton. Some lines are different in other versions of it. This version is from "Robert Burns: The Complete Poetical Works" edited by James A. Makay; Alloway Publishing Ltd, Darvel, Ayrshire; 1993).