Six Centuries of English Poetry - LightNovelsOnl.com
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"On all thy hours security shall smile, And bless thine evening walk and morning toil."
9. =bairns.= From A.-S. _bearns_, children.
10. =ca'.= Drive, follow. Probably not from the same root as our common word _call_. Kingsley uses it in this sense in the line:
"Go, Mary, go, and call the cattle home."
11. =neibor.= Neighboring. Milton, in "Comus," uses the expressions: "Some neighbor woodman," "some neighbor villager"; and Shakespeare says: "A neighbor thicket" ("Love's Labour Lost"), and "neighbor room"
("Hamlet").
12. =deposit.= p.r.o.nounced here _dep'o-zit_.
13. =penny-fee.= Fee, wages, from A.-S. _feoh_, cattle. "Cattle," says Bosworth, "was the first kind of property; and, by bartering, this word came to signify money in general." So, too, the word _penny_ is from A.-S. _penig_, Icelandic _peningr_, cattle. The word _penny_, as in this country the word _dollar_, is used indefinitely for _money_.
14. Observe that in quoting the words of the Cotter the poet partially drops the Ayrs.h.i.+re dialect and uses a purer English.
15. =ben.= Within. The inner part of the house; from O. E. _binnan_, within. Its opposite is _but_, the outside of the house.
16. =kye.= Cattle, from O.-E. _cu_, or _kie_. _Kine_ is derived from the same root, and probably _cow_.
17. =hawkie.= This word, says Hales, "denotes, properly, a cow with a white face. So, in Northumberland, _bawsand_ was used of an animal with a white spot on its forehead, and _crummie_ of a cow with crooked horns."
18. =sin' lint was i' the bell.= Since flax was in bloom. That is, the cheese was a year old last flax-blossoming time.
19. =ha'-Bible.= The hall Bible--the Bible kept in the best room.
20. =bonnet.= This word in Scotch denotes a man's head-covering. In early English it was used in the same sense.
21. =beets.= Feeds,--that is, gives fuel to the flame.
"It warms me, it charms me, To mention but her name; It heats me, it beets me, And sets me a' on flame."
--_Burns's Epistle to Davie, a brother poet._
The word is probably from A.-S. _betan_, to better, to mend; from which, also, we have the words _beat_, to excel, _better_, _best_, etc.
22. Burns refers the reader to Pope's "Windsor Forest" for this quotation. He probably had in mind the line in the "Essay on Man":
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast."
23. =sacerdotal stole.= A long, narrow scarf with fringed ends, and richly embroidered, worn by the clergy upon special occasions.
=Sacerdotal=, from Lat. _sacerdos_, a priest. =Stole=, from Lat. _stola_, a long dress worn by Roman women over their tunic and fastened with a girdle.
24. Pope's "Essay on Man," Epistle iv, line 247.
25. William Wallace (1270-1305), the Scotch national hero was, like Burns, a native of Ayrs.h.i.+re.
VOCABULARY.
=aft=, often.
=amaist=, almost.
=amang=, among.
=ance=, once.
=auld=, old.
=belyve=, by and by.
=blate=, bashful.
=blinkin=, gleaming.
=blythe=, happy.
=braw=, brave, fine.
=cannie=, easy.
=carking=, fretting.
=certes=, certain.
=chows=, chews.
=claes=, clothes.
=convoy=, accompany.
=cracks=, talks.
=craws=, crows.
=drapping=, dropping.
=eydent=, diligent.
=fell=, tasty.
=flichterin=, fluttering.
=frae=, from.
=gang=, go.
=gars=, makes.
=guid=, good.
=hae=, have.
=haffets=, temples.
=hafflins=, half.
=halesome=, wholesome.
=hallan=, part.i.tion wall.
=hameward=, homeward.
=ingle=, fire.
=jauk=, trifle.
=kebbuck=, cheese.
=kens=, understands.
=lathefu'=, shy.
=lave=, the rest.
=lyart=, gray.
=miry=, muddy, dusty.
=moil=, labor.
=nae=, no.
=parritch=, porridge.
=pleugh=, plough.
=rin=, run.
=sair-won=, hard-earned.
=sowpe=, milk.
=spiers=, inquires.
=stacher=, stagger.
=strappin'=, strapping, stout.
