Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 15

"On all thy hours security shall smile, And bless thine evening walk and morning toil."

9. =bairns.= From A.-S. _bearns_, children.

10. =ca'.= Drive, follow. Probably not from the same root as our common word _call_. Kingsley uses it in this sense in the line:

"Go, Mary, go, and call the cattle home."

11. =neibor.= Neighboring. Milton, in "Comus," uses the expressions: "Some neighbor woodman," "some neighbor villager"; and Shakespeare says: "A neighbor thicket" ("Love's Labour Lost"), and "neighbor room"

("Hamlet").

12. =deposit.= p.r.o.nounced here _dep'o-zit_.

13. =penny-fee.= Fee, wages, from A.-S. _feoh_, cattle. "Cattle," says Bosworth, "was the first kind of property; and, by bartering, this word came to signify money in general." So, too, the word _penny_ is from A.-S. _penig_, Icelandic _peningr_, cattle. The word _penny_, as in this country the word _dollar_, is used indefinitely for _money_.

14. Observe that in quoting the words of the Cotter the poet partially drops the Ayrs.h.i.+re dialect and uses a purer English.

15. =ben.= Within. The inner part of the house; from O. E. _binnan_, within. Its opposite is _but_, the outside of the house.

16. =kye.= Cattle, from O.-E. _cu_, or _kie_. _Kine_ is derived from the same root, and probably _cow_.

17. =hawkie.= This word, says Hales, "denotes, properly, a cow with a white face. So, in Northumberland, _bawsand_ was used of an animal with a white spot on its forehead, and _crummie_ of a cow with crooked horns."

18. =sin' lint was i' the bell.= Since flax was in bloom. That is, the cheese was a year old last flax-blossoming time.

19. =ha'-Bible.= The hall Bible--the Bible kept in the best room.

20. =bonnet.= This word in Scotch denotes a man's head-covering. In early English it was used in the same sense.

21. =beets.= Feeds,--that is, gives fuel to the flame.

"It warms me, it charms me, To mention but her name; It heats me, it beets me, And sets me a' on flame."

--_Burns's Epistle to Davie, a brother poet._

The word is probably from A.-S. _betan_, to better, to mend; from which, also, we have the words _beat_, to excel, _better_, _best_, etc.

22. Burns refers the reader to Pope's "Windsor Forest" for this quotation. He probably had in mind the line in the "Essay on Man":

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast."

23. =sacerdotal stole.= A long, narrow scarf with fringed ends, and richly embroidered, worn by the clergy upon special occasions.

=Sacerdotal=, from Lat. _sacerdos_, a priest. =Stole=, from Lat. _stola_, a long dress worn by Roman women over their tunic and fastened with a girdle.

24. Pope's "Essay on Man," Epistle iv, line 247.

25. William Wallace (1270-1305), the Scotch national hero was, like Burns, a native of Ayrs.h.i.+re.

VOCABULARY.

=aft=, often.

=amaist=, almost.

=amang=, among.

=ance=, once.

=auld=, old.

=belyve=, by and by.

=blate=, bashful.

=blinkin=, gleaming.

=blythe=, happy.

=braw=, brave, fine.

=cannie=, easy.

=carking=, fretting.

=certes=, certain.

=chows=, chews.

=claes=, clothes.

=convoy=, accompany.

=cracks=, talks.

=craws=, crows.

=drapping=, dropping.

=eydent=, diligent.

=fell=, tasty.

=flichterin=, fluttering.

=frae=, from.

=gang=, go.

=gars=, makes.

=guid=, good.

=hae=, have.

=haffets=, temples.

=hafflins=, half.

=halesome=, wholesome.

=hallan=, part.i.tion wall.

=hameward=, homeward.

=ingle=, fire.

=jauk=, trifle.

=kebbuck=, cheese.

=kens=, understands.

=lathefu'=, shy.

=lave=, the rest.

=lyart=, gray.

=miry=, muddy, dusty.

=moil=, labor.

=nae=, no.

=parritch=, porridge.

=pleugh=, plough.

=rin=, run.

=sair-won=, hard-earned.

=sowpe=, milk.

=spiers=, inquires.

=stacher=, stagger.

=strappin'=, strapping, stout.