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Address to a Haggis
by Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o’ need,
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see rustic labour dight,
An’ cut you up wi’ ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like onie ditch.
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then, horn for horn they stretch an’ strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit hums.
Is there that o’er his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi’ perfect scunner,
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner!
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro’ bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll mak it whissle;
An’ legs, an’ arms, an’ heads will sned,
Like taps o’ thrissle.
Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o’ fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer,
Gie her a Haggis.
Glossary
sonsie: lucky, fortunate
painch: paunch
thairm: intestine
trencher: plate
hurdies: buttocks
dight: adorned, decorated
kyte: stomach, belly
rive: to split apart
scunner: dislike, aversion
nieve: fist
sned: to chop off
skink: to serve (a drink)
jaup: to splash
luggie: a kind of large drinking vessel
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If I Were King
by A.A. Milne (1882-1956)
I often wish I were a King,
And then I could do anything.
If only I were King of Spain,
I’d take my hat off in the rain.
If only I were King of France,
I wouldn’t brush my hair for aunts.
I think, if I were King of Greece,
I’d push things off the mantelpiece.
If I were King of Norroway,
I’d ask an elephant to stay.
If I were King of Babylon,
I’d leave my button gloves undone.
If I were King of Timbuctoo,
I’d think of lovely things to do.
If I were King of anything,
I’d tell the soldiers, “I’m the King!”
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Father William
by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson (1832-1898)
“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?”
“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,
“I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.”
“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—
Pray, what is the reason of that?”
“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,
“I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—
Allow me to sell you a couple.”
“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak:
Pray, how did you manage to do it?”
“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw
Has lasted the rest of my life.”
“You are old,” said the youth; “one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—
What made you so awfully clever?”
“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,”
Said his father, “don’t give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I’ll kick you down-stairs!”
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According to the NYT: “The latest rejection of his [Trump’s] budget blueprint came on Wednesday, after the House voted 341 to 79 to pass a pair of bills to fund the State and Treasury Departments, as well as other foreign aid programs, providing money for agencies that Mr. Trump had proposed eliminating entirely. …
“Lawmakers are now in the process of negotiating and approving a series of spending bills before a Jan. 30 shutdown deadline. Appropriators in both the House and the Senate have come to bipartisan agreements on eight of the 12 bills that fund the government. The Senate was racing to clear three measures that passed the House last week with money for the Commerce and Justice Departments, as well as for environmental programs.
“Even some programs that have long been despised by conservatives are instead set to sustain only modest cuts, including Voice of America, the National Endowment for Democracy and the National Endowment for the Arts.”
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According to the NYT: “Ukraine on Thursday awarded a bid to mine a major state-owned lithium deposit to investors that include a billionaire friend of President Trump, as his administration has indicated it is looking for investment opportunities in the war-torn country.”
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According to the NYT: “President Trump has put a number on how much he wants the biggest U.S. and European oil giants to pour into Venezuela: at least $100 billion.
“During a meeting at the White House on Friday afternoon, oil executives made it clear that they were not yet prepared to follow through. …
“Mr. Trump said the U.S. government was prepared to provide security guarantees, but not money for oil projects.”
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The New York Times on DJT’s plans for Venezuela.
“On Sunday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to recast Mr. Trump’s assertion a day earlier that the United States would “run” Venezuela, saying instead that the administration would keep a military “quarantine” in place on the country’s oil exports to exert leverage on the new leadership there.
“When asked how the United States planned to govern Venezuela, Mr. Rubio did not lay out a plan for a U.S. occupation authority, like the one that the George W. Bush administration put in place in Baghdad during the Iraq War, but spoke of leverage over a Venezuelan government run by allies of Mr. Maduro, now jailed in Brooklyn, to force policy changes.
“U.S. forces will continue to prevent oil tankers on a U.S. sanctions list from entering and leaving the country until the government opens up the state-controlled oil industry to foreign investment — presumably giving priority to American companies — and makes other changes, he said on “Face the Nation” on CBS News.”
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