Penny For Your Thoughts

Halloween by Robert Burns

Upon that night, when fairies light

On Cassilis Downans[2] dance,

Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,

On sprightly coursers prance;

Or for Colean the rout is ta’en,

Beneath the moon’s pale beams;

There, up the Cove,[3] to stray an’ rove,

Amang the rocks and streams

To sport that night;

Amang the bonie winding banks,

Where Doon rins, wimplin, clear;

Where Bruce[4] ance rul’d the martial ranks,

An’ shook his Carrick spear;

Some merry, friendly, countra-folks

Together did convene,

To burn their nits, an’ pou their stocks,

An’ haud their Halloween

Fu’ blythe that night.

The lasses feat, an’ cleanly neat,

Mair braw than when they’re fine;

Their faces blythe, fu’ sweetly kythe,

Hearts leal, an’ warm, an’ kin’:

The lads sae trig, wi’ wooer-babs

Weel-knotted on their garten;

Some unco blate, an’ some wi’ gabs

Gar lasses’ hearts gang startin

Whiles fast at night.

Then, first an’ foremost, thro’ the kail,

Their stocks[5] maun a’ be sought ance;

They steek their een, and grape an’ wale

For muckle anes, an’ straught anes.

Poor hav’rel Will fell aff the drift,

An’ wandered thro’ the bow-kail,

An’ pou’t for want o’ better shift

A runt was like a sow-tail

Sae bow’t that night.

Then, straught or crooked, yird or nane,

They roar an’ cry a’ throu’ther;

The vera wee-things, toddlin, rin,

Wi’ stocks out owre their shouther:

An’ gif the custock’s sweet or sour,

Wi’ joctelegs they taste them;

Syne coziely, aboon the door,

Wi’ cannie care, they’ve plac’d them

To lie that night.

The lassies staw frae ’mang them a’,

To pou their stalks o’ corn;[6]

But Rab slips out, an’ jinks about,

Behint the muckle thorn:

He grippit Nelly hard and fast:

Loud skirl’d a’ the lasses;

But her tap-pickle maist was lost,

Whan kiutlin in the fause-house[7]

Wi’ him that night.