The Cotter's Saturday Night Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEF GHGHHIHJJ KLKMMGMGG KNKNNNNNN JJJJJNJNN OPOQRKRKK STSTUVTVV WXCXXAXAA JYJYZKYKK VA2VA2A2NA2NN VB2VB2C2VB2VV VVVVVNVNN RVRVVA2VA2A2 RXRXXRXRR D2YD2JYE2YF2E2 XVXVVVVVV ARARRA2RG2G2 VVVVVNVNN TVTVVVVVV RVRVVVVVV NVNVVNVNN VVVVVVVVVINSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN ESQ | A |
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Let not Ambition mock their useful toil | B |
Their homely joys and destiny obscure | C |
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile | D |
The short and simple annals of the poor | E |
Gray Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard | F |
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My lov'd my honour'd much respected friend | G |
No mercenary bard his homage pays | H |
With honest pride I scorn each selfish end | G |
My dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise | H |
To you I sing in simple Scottish lays | H |
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene | I |
The native feelings strong the guileless ways | H |
What Aiken in a cottage would have been | J |
Ah tho' his worth unknown far happier there I ween | J |
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November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh | K |
The short'ning winter day is near a close | L |
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh | K |
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose | M |
The toil worn Cotter frae his labour goes | M |
This night his weekly moil is at an end | G |
Collects his spades his mattocks and his hoes | M |
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend | G |
And weary o'er the moor his course does hameward bend | G |
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At length his lonely cot appears in view | K |
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree | N |
Th' expectant wee things toddlin stacher through | K |
To meet their dad wi' flichterin noise an' glee | N |
His wee bit ingle blinkin bonilie | N |
His clean hearth stane his thrifty wifie's smile | N |
The lisping infant prattling on his knee | N |
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile | N |
An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil | N |
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Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in | J |
At service out amang the farmers roun' | J |
Some ca' the pleugh some herd some tentie rin | J |
A cannie errand to a neibor toun | J |
Their eldest hope their Jenny woman grown | J |
In youthfu' bloom love sparkling in her e'e | N |
Comes hame perhaps to shew a braw new gown | J |
Or deposite her sair won penny fee | N |
To help her parents dear if they in hardship be | N |
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With joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet | O |
An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers | P |
The social hours swift wing'd unnotic'd fleet | O |
Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears | Q |
The parents partial eye their hopeful years | R |
Anticipation forward points the view | K |
The mother wi' her needle an' her sheers | R |
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new | K |
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due | K |
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Their master's an' their mistress's command | S |
The younkers a' are warned to obey | T |
An' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand | S |
An' ne'er tho' out o' sight to jauk or play | T |
An' O be sure to fear the Lord alway | U |
An' mind your duty duly morn an' night | V |
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray | T |
Implore his counsel and assisting might | V |
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright | V |
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But hark a rap comes gently to the door | W |
Jenny wha kens the meaning o' the same | X |
Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor | C |
To do some errands and convoy her hame | X |
The wily mother sees the conscious flame | X |
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e and flush her cheek | A |
Wi' heart struck anxious care inquires his name | X |
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak | A |
Weel pleas'd the mother hears it's nae wild worthless rake | A |
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Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben | J |
A strappin youth he takes the mother's eye | Y |
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill taen | J |
The father cracks of horses pleughs and kye | Y |
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy | Z |
But blate and laithfu' scarce can weel behave | K |
The mother wi' a woman's wiles can spy | Y |
What maks the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave | K |
Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave | K |
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O happy love where love like this is found | V |
O heart felt raptures bliss beyond compare | A2 |
I've paced much this weary mortal round | V |
And sage experience bids me this declare | A2 |
If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare | A2 |
One cordial in this melancholy vale | N |
'Tis when a youthful loving modest pair | A2 |
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale | N |
Beneath the milk white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale | N |
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Is there in human form that bears a heart | V |
A wretch a villain lost to love and truth | B2 |
That can with studied sly ensnaring art | V |
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth | B2 |
Curse on his perjur'd arts dissembling smooth | C2 |
Are honour virtue conscience all exil'd | V |
Is there no pity no relenting truth | B2 |
Points to the parents fondling o'er their child | V |
Then paints the ruin'd maid and their distraction wild | V |
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But now the supper crowns their simple board | V |
The halesome parritch chief of Scotia's food | V |
The soupe their only hawkie does afford | V |
That yont the hallan snugly chows her cud | V |
The dame brings forth in complimental mood | V |
To grace the lad her weel hain'd kebbuck fell | N |
An' aft he's prest an' aft he ca's it guid | V |
The frugal wifie garrulous will tell | N |
How 'twas a towmond auld sin' lint was i' the bell | N |
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The cheerfu' supper done wi' serious face | R |
They round the ingle form a circle wide | V |
The sire turns o'er with patriarchal grace | R |
The big ha' Bible ance his father's pride | V |
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside | V |
His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare | A2 |
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide | V |
He wales a portion with judicious care | A2 |
And Let us worship God he says with solemn air | A2 |
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They chant their artless notes in simple guise | R |
They tune their hearts by far the noblest aim | X |
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise | R |
Or plaintive Martyrs worthy of the name | X |
Or noble Elgin beets the heaven ward flame | X |
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays | R |
Compar'd with these Italian trills are tame | X |
The tickl'd ear no heart felt raptures raise | R |
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise | R |
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The priest like father reads the sacred page | D2 |
How Abram was the friend of God on high | Y |
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage | D2 |
With Amalek's ungracious progeny | J |
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie | Y |
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire | E2 |
Or Job's pathetic plaint and wailing cry | Y |
Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire | F2 |
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre | E2 |
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Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme | X |
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed | V |
How He who bore in Heaven the second name | X |
Had not on earth whereon to lay His head | V |
How His first followers and servants sped | V |
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land | V |
How he who lone in Patmos banished | V |
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand | V |
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by Heaven's command | V |
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Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King | A |
The saint the father and the husband prays | R |
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing | A |
That thus they all shall meet in future days | R |
There ever bask in uncreated rays | R |
No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear | A2 |
Together hymning their Creator's praise | R |
In such society yet still more dear | G2 |
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere | G2 |
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Compar'd with this how poor Religion's pride | V |
In all the pomp of method and of art | V |
When men display to congregations wide | V |
Devotion's ev'ry grace except the heart | V |
The Pow'r incens'd the pageant will desert | V |
The pompous strain the sacerdotal stole | N |
But haply in some cottage far apart | V |
May hear well pleas'd the language of the soul | N |
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enrol | N |
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Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way | T |
The youngling cottagers retire to rest | V |
The parent pair their secret homage pay | T |
And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request | V |
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest | V |
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride | V |
Would in the way His wisdom sees the best | V |
For them and for their little ones provide | V |
But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside | V |
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From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs | R |
That makes her lov'd at home rever'd abroad | V |
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings | R |
An honest man's the noblest work of God | V |
And certes in fair Virtue's heavenly road | V |
The cottage leaves the palace far behind | V |
What is a lordling's pomp a cumbrous load | V |
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind | V |
Studied in arts of hell in wickedness refin'd | V |
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O Scotia my dear my native soil | N |
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent | V |
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil | N |
Be blest with health and peace and sweet content | V |
And oh may Heaven their simple lives prevent | V |
From luxury's contagion weak and vile | N |
Then howe'er crowns and coronets be rent | V |
A virtuous populace may rise the while | N |
And stand a wall of fire around their much lov'd isle | N |
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O Thou who pour'd the patriotic tide | V |
That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted heart | V |
Who dar'd to nobly stem tyrannic pride | V |
Or nobly die the second glorious part | V |
The patriot's God peculiarly thou art | V |
His friend inspirer guardian and reward | V |
O never never Scotia's realm desert | V |
But still the patriot and the patriot bard | V |
In bright succession raise her ornament and guard | V |
Robert Burns
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