From Lines to William Simson

1] These lines were addressed to William Simson, the schoolmaster of Ochiltree in Ayrshire, May 1785. They are a statement of Burns's ambition to vie with Scottish poets already famous, by celebrating the scenic beauties and romantic associations of his own district.
Coila. The poetic name for Kyle the district of Ayrshire between the rivers Irvine and Doon.
fidge fu' fain. Fidget full gladly, wriggle or tremble with delight. Back to Line

2] bardies o' her ain. Poets of her own. Back to Line

3] chiels. Fellows.
their chanters. The pipes of their bag-pipes.
hain. Spare. Back to Line

10] New Holland. The former name for Australia. Back to Line

12] Magellan. Strait between Tierra del Fuego and the mainland of South America. Back to Line

13] Ramsay. Allan Ramsay (1686-1758), an Edinburgh bookseller, editor, and poet. By his collections entitled Evergreen (1724) and Tea Table Miscellany (1724-27), he helped to revive interest in the older Scottish poems and ballads. His play, The Gentle Shepherd (1725), and his poems (1728) encouraged the use of the Scottish dialect for literary composition.
Fergusson. Robert Fergusson (1750-1774), an Edinburgh lawyer's clerk and poet who used the Scottish dialect. Some of his satirical and descriptive poems afforded a model for Burns. His premature death was hastened by poverty and dissipation. Back to Line

14] a lift aboon. A lift-up. Back to Line

16] Yarrow and Tweed...rings, e.g., in "The Braes of Yarrow." Back to Line

17] Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon. Rivers of Ayrshire. Back to Line

19] Ilissus. The well-known river of Athens. Back to Line

21] fit. Foot. Back to Line

23] gar. Make.
burnies. Little brooks. Back to Line

27] dens. Glens, wooded hollows. Back to Line

28] Wallace. The liberator of Scotland from English rule, defeated the English at Stirling Brig, 1297; defeated by Edward I at Falkirk, 1298; executed in London, 1305. These with many events unknown in history are related in a 15th-century poem attributed to one Blind Harry the minstrel, which in a modernized version by Hamilton of Gilbertfield, Burns had read in early youth and which had deeply impressed him. Many of Wallace's strategems and surprises of the English there recorded, occured in Ayrshire, where Wallace had an uncle, Sir Reginald Crawford. Back to Line

29] bure the gree. Carried off the prize. Back to Line

30] Southron billies. English fellows. Back to Line

32] boils up. Burns says of Hamilton of Gilbertfield's version of the Wallace: "it poured a Scottish prejudice in my veins, which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest." Back to Line

35] red-wat-shod: red-wet-shod, shod with blood. Back to Line

Publication Start Year

1786

RPO poem Editors

W. J. Alexander; William Hall Clawson

RPO Edition

RP (1912), 82-84.

Rhyme

aaabab