5>t 3o!)tt'js ®ort. 
Tam saw an unco sight! 
Warlocks and witches in a dance; 
Nae cotillon brent new frae France, 
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, 
Put life an mettle in their heels. 
A winnock bunker in the east, 
There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast; 
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, 
To gie them music was his charge: 
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl, 
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.— 
Coffins stood round like open presses, 
That shaw’d the dead in their last dresses; 
And by some devilish cantraip slight, 
Each in its cauld hand held a light,— 
By which heroic Tam was able 
To note upon the haly table, 
A murderer’s banes in gibbet aims; 
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen’d bairns ; 
A thief, new cutted frae a rape, 
Wi’ his last gasp his gab did gape; 
Five tomahawks, wi’ bluid red-rusted; 
Five scimiters, wi’ murder crusted; 
A garter, which a babe had strangled; 
A knife, a father’s throat had mangled, 
Whom his ain son o’ life bereft, 
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft; 
Wi’ mair o’ horrible and awfu’, 
Which ev’n to name wad be uni awfu’. 
183 
Burns. 
