Address to a Haggis by Robert Burns
The speaker praises the haggis as the greatest of all puddings, worthy of a grace because of its large, honest, substantial form. It fills a trencher, bulges like a distant hill, and spills rich juices as it is cut open by rustic Labour. A group eagerly eats it until their swollen bellies are tight, while auld Guidman gives thanks. The speaker scorns French ragout, olio, and fricassee, portraying those who prefer such dishes as weak and thin. In contrast, a Rustic fed on haggis is powerful enough to make the earth tremble and, armed with a blade, capable of cutting down limbs as easily as thistle tops. The speaker asks those who make mankind their care and dish out their food to give Auld Scotland a haggis rather than skinking ware that jaups in luggies.
By Robert Burns · First published 1787 · Genre: Mock-Heroic Poetry, Satirical Poetry, Ode · 464 words
First lines
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, / Great chieftain o' the pudding-race! / Aboon them a' yet 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 was help to mend a mill / In time o'need, / While thro' your pores the dews distil / Like amber bead.
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Address to a Haggis is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Burns, dated 1787 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Burns
- Date: 1787 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Mock-Heroic Poetry, Satirical Poetry, Ode, Scots Language Poetry, Humorous Poetry
- Length: 464 words
- Structure: 1 section, 9 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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Genres
- Mock-Heroic Poetry — The poem humorously elevates a humble haggis into a grand national hero through ceremonious praise, epic-scale imagery, and lofty address.
- Satirical Poetry — Burns satirizes fashionable foreign cuisine and those who disdain traditional Scottish food, contrasting their weakness with the vigor of haggis-fed rural people.
- Ode — Structured as a direct, enthusiastic address to its subject, the poem celebrates the haggis with praise, invocation, and heightened language.
- Scots Language Poetry — It is written predominantly in Scots dialect, using regional vocabulary, pronunciation, and idiom as central features of its voice and cultural identity.
Tags
Scottish poetry · eighteenth-century Scotland · Scots language · mock-heroic ode · comic praise · haggis · Scottish national identity · food and feasting · working-class life · rustic labor · abundance · appetite