Explore "Tam and the Leeches" by David Rorie on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ I. / Faith, there's a hantle queer complaints / To cheenge puir sinners into saints, / An' mony divers ways o' deein' / That doctors hae a chance o' seein'. / The Babylonian scartit bricks / To tell his doots o' Death's dark tricks, / The Roman kentna hoo 'twas farin' / Across the ferry rowed by Charon, / An' readin' doonwards through the ages / The tale's the same in a' their pages, / Eternal grum'lin' at the load / We hae to bear alang Life's road, / Yet, when we're fairly at the bit, / Awfu', maist awfu sweer to flit, / Praisin' the name o' ony drug / The doctor whispers in oor lug / As guaranteed to cure the evil, / To haud us here an' cheat the Deevil. / For gangrels, croochin' in the strae, / To leave this warld are oft as wae / As the prood laird o' mony an acre, / O' temporal things a keen partaker.
II. / Noo a' this leads up to my tale / O' what befell puir Tam MacPhail, / A dacent miner chiel in Fife / Wha led a maist exemplar' life, / An' ne'er abused himsel' wi' liquor, / But took it canny-like an' siccar. / Aye when he cast his wet pit-breeks, / Tam had a gless that warm'd his cheeks; / For as it trickled owre his craigie, / He held it wardit aff lumbaigy. / It wasna that he liked the dram, / 'Twas pure needcessity wi' Tam! / But twa years syne-or was it three?- / Tam thocht that he was gaun to dee, / An' Faith! they've often gar'd me grew / By tellin' what I'll tell to you.