In durance vile 1here must I wake and weep, And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley.
A women can make an average man great, and a great man average.
O, wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An' foolish notion.
The lightly-jumping, glowrin' trouts, That thro' my waters play.
[Scottish songs] are, I own, frequently wild, & unreduceable to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect.