The annual celebratory tribute to the life, works and spirit of the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns (1759-1796). Celebrated on, or about, the Bard's birthday, January 25th, Burns Suppers range from formal gatherings of esthetes and scholars to uproariously informal rave-ups of drunkards and louts. Most Burns Suppers fall in the middle of this range, and adhere, more or less, to some sort of time honoured form which includes the eating of a traditional Scottish meal, the drinking of Scotch whisky, and the recitation of works by, about, and in the spirit of the Bard.

Every Burns Supper has its own special form and flavour, though there are probably more similarities than differences among these gastro-literary affairs. Individual tastes and talents will determine the character of your Burns Supper. Some celebrants may contribute the composition of original songs or poems; some may excel at giving toasts or reciting verse; while others may be captivating storytellers. A particular group of celebrants will, over time, develop a unique group character which will distinguish their Burns Supper celebration from every other.

With a little bit of planning anyone (well, almost anyone) can enjoy a Burns Night celebration. All that's needed is a place to gather (gracious host), plenty of haggis and neeps to go around (splendid chef), a master of ceremonies (foolhardy chairman), friendly celebrants (you and your drouthy cronies), and good Scotch drink to keep you warm (BYOB). With these ingredients, at least a few celebrants will be able to make prattling fools of themselves, trying to do justice to the words and spirit of Robert Burns. And if everyone brings along a wee dram and a bit of poetry, prose or song then each, in turn, may become an object of mirth and amusement to the gathered throng. Be prepared to enjoy yourself beyond all expectation. With good cheer and gay company we all may, in short, be able to ring in the Bard's birthday fou rarely.

Below is a suggested itinery:

1. Gather

The celebrants gather and mingle, catch up on gossip, pore through their Burns editions, and peruse the whisky selection. The chairman or host may make some introductions among the guests, assign some readings, or deliver a few opening remarks.

2. Meal - Welcome Grace

The celebrants are called to the table, the host offers an opening grace - traditionally The Selkirk Grace - and the soup course is served.

Selkirk Grace

"Some hae meat and cannot eat.
Some cannot eat that want it:
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit"

3. Parade of the Haggis

The evening's highest bit of pomp. The chef, carrying in the haggis, follows the piper - playing Brose & Butter, A Mans A Man, or some other appropriate tune - in a more or less dignified procession through theroom. The chef lays the haggis, on it's groaning trencher, before the chairman at the high table.

4. Address to a Haggis

A previously designated reciter reads this poem over the haggis. A guid whisky gill is offered to the piper, chef and reciter, and with alacrity, the haggis is sliced open with the finely honed edge of a ceremonial dirk (though any old knife will do).

Address to a Haggis.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;

The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect sconner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit:
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!

The meal is then served with all its composite courses and copious helpings of guid ale and whisky. (I've seen some flavor their haggis with a dram of whisky, but I prefer both my pudden and whisky neat).

5. Interval

After the meal there is a brief interval while the table is cleared or the celebrants retire to another room for the rest of the evening's festivities. The chairman needs to keep the guests focused and facilitate the flow of the songs, toasts and poetry that are to follow. Time to refill your glasses!

6. Song

A good warm-up for the Immortal Memory, a musically inclined guest, or two, may sing a Burns song. A song may be performed between the haggis course and the dessert.

7. Immortal Memory

The chairman, or designated speaker, delivers the Immortal Memory address. This should be a rather serious and careful consideration of the life and art of Robert Burns. It may be a general, biographical sort of speech, or may address a specific aspect of the Bard's work that is relevant to the particular group of assembled celebrants. This speech should be long-winded enough to remind the guests that this isn't the office Christmas party, yet not so long as to induce cramping, dry-mouth, or ringing in the ears (about 25 minutes). This speech always ends with standing guests, raised glasses and an offered toast to the immortal memory of the Bard of Ayr.

8. Songs, Music & Readings

Now, in loose order, deftly orchestrated by the chairman, follow the other poems, toasts, songs and addresses of the evening. Celebrants who have arrived with selections to read take their turn entertaining the others. The readings at our Burns Supper are not confined to the writings Burns exclusively. Anything that honors the immortal memory and spirit of the Bard is welcome. These include stories and anecdotes pertaining to Burns and his time, poems and songs by other Scottish poets, and original works composed by the celebrants for the occasion.

9. Toast To The Lassies

A traditional Burns Night ritual, this toast should be a light-hearted lampoon of the lassies' (few) shortcomings. Illustrations from Burns, or from first hand knowledge of the subject, may be used. Warning: Please be tactful! It's funny, but I've noticed that even the mildest, vaguest, allusions to the faults of women, in even the most general sort of way, may be misconstrued as a viscious personal attack!

EXAMPLE TOAST

It has long been observed, "A woman can make an average man great, and a great man average." Burns could not have attained the status he has so long enjoyed, were it not for the fact that he was surrounded by remarkable women. The women of whom Burns wrote, were not the frail, timid ladies of English Nobility, they were neither weaker vessels, nor victims, they were the proud descendants of Celtic womanhood. When the Ancient Romans encountered the Celtic tribes inhabiting Northern Europe, in an area north of the Alps, and extending from Turkey in the east, to Ireland in the west, they were impressed with equal station enjoyed by their women.

Celtic women enjoyed an unusual degree of freedom by standards known in the Ancient and Medieval worlds. They were renowned for their individuality and courage, and were particularly praised for their qualities of self-respect and independence. Celtic women could inherit land and title, no less than their male siblings.

A woman could serve as chief of the clan, and enter into battle, just as men did, in time of war. The ferocity of the Celtic warrior women is the subject of legend.

The Romans were shocked by the sexual liberty enjoyed by Celtic women, who extended what the Celts euphemistically referred to as, "the friendship of the thighs."

Proper Roman matrons, with the false standards of "respectability" imposed upon them by their men folk, found lovers among those prepared to indulge in secret liaisons.

Due, perhaps, to the sexual liberty of the Celts, succession within their tribes and clans was matrilineal because, amid such general promiscuity, it could be difficult to ascertain who the father of a particular child had been.

A Celtic woman could divorce her husband if he failed to support her, or treat her with respect, if he was impotent, homosexual, sterile, or gossiped about their sex lives.

She could leave him if he was fat, a snorer, or just plain repulsive.

It was to the inheritors of the Spirit of Celtic womanhood, and to the literary celebration of their many virtues, that Burns devoted so much of his energy:

The farmer’s daughter, Nelly Kilpatrick, known to us as Handsome Nell, Peggy Thompson, whose memory is preserved in Now Westlin Winds and Slaught’ring Guns,Burns only bride, Jean Armour, who bore him two (2) sets of twins, before their wedding, inspiration for A Wife’s a Winsome Wee Thing, Mary Campbell, immortalized as Highland Mary,Nancy Craig MacLehose, known secretly to Burns, and now, to all the world as Clarinda, who inspired Ae Fond Kiss, And Anna Parke, celebrated as Anna with the Golden Locks.

The irresistible beauty, and the sensuality, of the women who inhabited the world of Burns is evidenced by the fact that he fathered no fewer than thirteen (13) children through liaisons with no fewer than five (5) women whose names are known to us.

Clearly, Burns enjoyed "the friendship of the thighs," and found, in that, his greatest inspiration. The strength of women is demonstrated in the person of his wife, Jean Armour who, for reasons even the most generous would have difficulty comprehending, chose to take the daughter of one of Burns liaisons into her own home. But we can easily imagine that there were exchanges in the Burns home which provided the model for the ferocity of Tam O’ Shanter’s missus.

Burns could not have attained the status he has so long enjoyed, were it not for the fact that he was surrounded by remarkable women……And, aren’t we all?

His love of the lassies, is best summarized in this excerpt from Green Grow the Rashes:

Auld Nature swears the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes;
Her ‘prentice han’ she tried on man,
And then She made the lasses!

And so we toast the daughters of the Celts, and All the members of the fairer sex who are the inheritors of the Spirit of the Celts, as celebrated in the verse of Robert Burns, in all their beauty, dignity, strength, and, yes, in their ferocity.

"A woman can make an average man great, and a great man average."

Let each man consider this proposition, quietly, and to himself, for in doing so aloud, he places himself in grave peril.

Gentlemen! Be up, on your feet, and join me in a Toast to the Lassies!

To the Lassies!

10. Reply From The Lassies

Always delivered with grace, charm and wit, this savaging of the lads' crude dispositions and social inferiority is always accepted with good humor by the menfolk present.

EXAMPLE REPLY TO THE TOAST TO THE LASSIES

When Angus asked me - a few days ago only - if I would be prepared to,give the reply to the toast to the lassies tonight, it wasn't so much the lack of time left to me to prepare my reply, but the fact that the reply, while illustrating the vices and lack of morality of the members of the `unfairer' sex, is to end on a complementary note?!!

Robert Burns represented the aspirations of the "common man". He put into song many of our better ideas and ideals and verbalized our higher instincts. He also had a hawkish sense of bawdy humour, and in that vein then, let me make a sincere effort to begin this reply on a complementary note - by beginning with a look at the "size" of Scottish manhood. (Raise hand to indicate "height")

Some years ago, whilst still living in Scotland, a television commercial for "Scots Porridge Oats" showed two tall, strapping men in kilts and string vests tossing the caber and strutting their stuff, after having consumed a hearty breakfast of hot porridge. The commercial however had to be filmed using English actors as no Scottish actors of the right build (i.e., tall and strapping) could be found to play the parts. A 5'2" Glaswegian man to whom I repeated the T.V. commercial story, theorized that all la creme-de-la-creme of Scottish manhood had been used as cannon fodder by the English in two world wars... leaving the runts at home to breed.

And what about the Scotsman's sense of style and dress? There is a theory that our ancestral Pict men painted themselves indigo so their wives could not see what they were up to in the heather with the woman next door. Nowadays though, Scotland is possessed of a tartan obsession. According to one historian, prior to Robert Burns the average clan gathering looked like a parade of tattie bags. A chief purpose of the original tartans was camouflage. Dressed in modern tartans the only way you men could hide would be to fight your battles on a ludo board.

Do we agree ladies with the statement that the kilt is an aphrodisiac? I once heard someone say that your man could hawk himself about in tight jeans or Italian suits and there's nothing doing. But should he (and I quote) "hap his hurdies with the passion pleats" it doesn't seem to matter what kind of women they are - rich, poor, old, young, black, white, yellow - they just melt, go shoogly in the legs, and submit. A social anthropologist who was asked why the kilt should be the world's greatest knee-trembler, just laughed and said "Accessibility old chap, that's what fascinates them, accessibility". Ladies take care - I am not speaking from experience here when I suggest, though, the answer to what a Scotsman wears under his kilt.... is best left to the imagination.

However, Scots men have acquired a few social graces over the past hundred years - they don't belch in the faces of women they are married to, and some of them (so I'm told) even take their socks off before having sex. Nowadays, alibis for bad behaviour based on a deprived Scottish childhood are so commonplace that they're ignored unless you can prove that you were breastfed by your father.

Robert Burns did not tolerate fools easily. In his epigram addressed to a gentleman at table who kept boasting of the company he kept, he wrote: "What of lords with whom you've supped, And of dukes that you dined with yestreen! A louse, sir, is still but a louse Though it crawl on the locks of a queen"

Robert Burns - who died at age 37 - united music, realism, comedy and humanity in a manner seldom seen. He was a true champion of the common man. But would he still have been today, when the "common man" is as common as Rab C. Nesbitt? What he would have made of contemporary Glasgow - where one definition of an atheist is: "A bloke who goes to a Rangers-Celtic match to watch the football". What would he have thought had he overheard this remark in a local tavern: Q. "What shall we drink to ?" A. "What about to 3 in the morning?"

Still, ladies - and you should know this - according to the result of a British Gas Energy Centre's ''HouseHusbands Day'' quiz - which was a light hearted quiz designed to test men's knowledge of traditionally female tasks - Scottish men outperformed their English and Welsh counterparts when it came to their knowledge of household chores. (I stress the word knowledge - knowing how to do something, and actually doing it are very different things!)

More than 2,000 men all over the UK took part in the quiz. They were asked revealing questions about jobs such as ironing, baking cakes and the best way to remove a red wine stain. Thirty-five percent of Scots answered all of the questions correctly - far more than any other region - proving they really are modern men of the 90's. 99.7% of them claimed they were capable of baking a sponge cake! They were only beaten - percentage wise - on the best way to remove red wine stains - but who bothers to remove alcohol stains in Scotland? (May I make mention here of a banner seen at a Scotland v Soviet Union football game in 1982, which read:

ALCOHOLISM v COMMUNISM

Ladies - I received a chain letter recently, but unlike most chain letters, this one, despite being postmarked Auchtermuchtie, did not cost anything. It read "This letter was started by a woman like yourself in the hope of bringing relief to other tired and discontented women. Just bundle up your husband or boyfriend and send him to the woman whose name appears at the top of the list. Then add your name to the bottom of the list and send a copy of this letter to five of your friends who are equally tired and discontented. When your name comes to the top of the list, you will receive 3,125 men -- and some of them are bound to be better than the one you gave up...."

There are three rings in marriage. The engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering. Of wedding rings, Burns wrote:

"She asked why wedding rings are made of gold;
I ventured this to instruct her;
Why, madam, love and lightning are the same,
On earth they glance, from Heaven they came.
Love is the soul's electric flame,
And gold its best conductor."

You men may not be great believers in the institution of marriage, but let me remind you of something. There is only one thing worse than being a batchelor - and that is being a batchelor's son!

Robbie Burns was a great believer in the rights of women and held us, rightly so, socially and intellectually as equals. From our present day point of view - but not his - he abused women when he fell in love with them - but a point in his favour, he never deserted any of his misbegotten weans! I ask myself what has really changed in men's behaviour toward the fairer sex from Robert Burns' time to ours? Not a lot... But, despite all their vices - their immorality - and all the troubles they may heap upon us, we continue to love them - those men. We love them for all the little things a man can be loved for (and let's face it girls, some of us can love very little things). Two rugby world cups ago in Italy at the Scotland-Brazil match, as the camera panned into the crowd it picked out a bunch of tartan-clad Scotsmen holding a banner which read "Elvis is alive and living in Partick". You can't help but love them.

So lassies - for those of you who are still looking for Mr. Right - girls, the message is clear - head NORTH of the border.

No Burns Night is complete without a recitation of the great narrative poem.

Tam o' Shanter

WHEN chapman billies leave the street, And drouthy neebors, neebors meet; As market-days are wearing late , An folk begin to tak the gate; While we sit bousing at the nappy, An getting fou and unco happy, We think na on the lang Scots miles, The mosses, waters, slaps, and styles, That lie between us and our hame, Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame, Gathering her brows like gathering storm, Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. This truth fand honest Tam o Shanter, As he frae Ayr ae night did canter: (Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses, For honest men and bonie lasses). O Tam had'st thou but been sae wise, As taen thy ain wife Kate's advice! She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum; That frae November till October, Ae market-day thou was nae sober; That ilka melder wi the miller, Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ; That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on, The smith and thee gat roarin fou on; That at the Lord's house, even on Sundav, Thou drank wi Kirkton Jean till Monday. She prophesied that, late or soon, Thou would be found, deep drown'd in Doon, Or catch'd wi warlocks in the mirk, By Alloway's auld,haunted kirk. Ah, gentle dames, it gars me greet, To think how monie counsels sweet, How monie lengthen'd, sage advices The husband frae the wife despises! But to our tale:- Ae market-night, Tam had got planted unco right, Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, Wi reaming swats, that drank divinely; And at his elbow, Souter Johnie, His ancient, trusty, drouthy cronie: Tam lo'ed him like a very brither; They had been fou for weeks thegither. The night drave on wi sangs and clatter; And ay the ale was growing better: The landlady and Tam grew gracious, Wi favours secret, sweet, and precious: The Souter tauld his queerest stories; The landlord's laugh was ready chorus: The storm without might rair and rustle, Tam did na mind the storm a whistle. Care, mad to see a man sae happy, E'en drown'd himsel amang the nappy. As bees flee hame wi lades o treasure, The minutes wing'd their way wi pleasure: Kings may be blest but Tam was glorious, O'er a' the ills o life victorious! But pleasures are like poppies spread: You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white then melts for ever; Or like the borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place; Or like the rainbow's lovely form Evanishing amid the storm. Nae man can tether time or tide, The hour approaches Tam maun ride: That hour o night's black arch the key-stane, As Tammie glowr'd, amaz'd and curious, The mirth and fun grew fast and furious; The piper loud and louder blew, The dancers quick and quicker flew, They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit, Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, And coost her duddies to the wark, And linket at it in her sark! Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans. . A' plump and strapping in their teens! Their sarks, instead o creeshie flannen, Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!- Thir breeks o mine, my only pair, That ance were plush, o guid blue hair, I wad hae gien them off my hurdies, For ae blink o the bonie burdies! But wither'd beldams, auld and droll, Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, Louping and flinging on a crummock, I wonder did na turn thy stomach! But Tam kend what was what fu brawlie: There was ae winsome wench and wawlie, That night enlisted in the core, Lang after kend on Carrick shore (For monie a beast to dead she shot, An perish'd monie a bonie boat, And shook baith meikle corn and bear, And kept the country-side in fear). Her cutty sark, o Paisley harn, That while a lassie she had worn, In longitude tho sorely scanty, It was her best, and she was vauntie... Ah! little kend thy reverend grannie, That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, Wi twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches), Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches! But here my Muse her wing maun cour, Sic flights are far beyond her power:

That dreary hour Tam mounts his beast in: And sic a night he taks the road in, As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. The wind blew as `twad blawn its last; The rattling showers rose on the blast; The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd; Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellow'd; That night, a child might understand, The Deil had business on his hand. Weel mounted on his gray mare Meg, A better never lifted leg, Tam skelpit on thro dub and mire, Despising wind, and rain, and fire; Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet, Whiles crooning o'er an auld Scots sonnet, Whiles glow'ring round wi prudent cares, Lest bogles catch him unawares: Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry. By this time he was cross the ford, Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd; And past the birks and meikle stane, Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane; And thro the whins, and by the cairn, Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn; And near the thorn, aboon the well, Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel. Before him Doon pours all his floods; The doubling storm roars thro the woods; The lightnings flash from pole to pole, Near and more near the thunders roll: When, glimmering thro the groaning trees, Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze, Thro ilka bore the beams were glancing, And loud resounded mirth and dancing. Inspiring bold John Barleycorn, What dangers thou canst make us scorn! Wi tippenny, we fear nae evil; Wi usquabae, we'll face the Devil! The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle, Fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle. But Maggie stood, right sair astonish'd, Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd, She ventur'd forward on the light; And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight! Warlocks and witches in a dance: Nae cotillion, brent new frae France, But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, Put life and mettle in their heels. A winnock-bunker in the east. There sat Auld Nick, in shape o beast; A touzie 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 sleight, 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-airns; 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 scymitars, 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 grey-hairs yet stack to the heft; Wi mair of horrible and awefu, Which even to name wad be unlawfu. To sing how Nannie lap and flang (A souple jade she was and strang), And how Tam stood like ane bewitch'd, And thought his very een enrich'd; Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu fain, And hotch'd and blew wi might and main: Till first ae caper, syne anither, Tam tint his reason a' thegither, And roars out, 'Weel done, Cutty-sark!' And in an instant all was dark: And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, When out the hellish legion sallied. As bees bizz out wi angry fyke, When plundering herds assail their byke; As open pussie's mortal foes, When, pop! she starts before their nose; As eager runs the market-crowd, When 'Catch the thief!' resounds aloud: So Maggie runs. the witches follow, Wi monie an eldritch skriech and hollow. Ah, Tam! Ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin! In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin! In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin! Kate soon will be a woefu woman! Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, And win the key-stane of the brig; There, at them thou thy tail may toss, A running stream they dare na cross! But ere the key-stane she could make, The fient a tail she had to shake; For Nannie, far before the rest, Hard upon noble Maggie prest, And flew at Tam wi furious ettle; But little wist she Maggie's mettle! Ae spring brought off her master hale, But left behind her ain grey tail: The carlin claught her by the rump, An left poor Maggie scarce a stump. Now, wha this tale o truth shall read, Ilk man, and mother's son, take heed: Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd, Or cutty sarks rin in your mind, Think! ye may buy the joys o'er dear: Remember Tam o Shanter's mare.

To A Mouse.

Wee sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an chase thee,
Wi murdering pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion.
An fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve:
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma request;
I'll get a blessin wi the lave,
An never miss't!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An naething, now, to big a new ane,
O foggage green!
An bleak December's win's ensuin.
Baith snell an keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an waste,
An weary winter comin fast.
An cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro thy cell.

That wee bit heap o leaves an stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble.
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o mice an men
Gang aft agley,
An lea'e us nought but grief an pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An forward, tho I canna see,

Songs & Poems

The chairman may play it by ear and keep the readings going as long as the guests are willing and attentive. Alternatively, the evening may evolve into a bacchanal of music, song and dancing. Either are acceptable.

Closing Remarks From The Chairman

When an end to the festivities has finally arrived the chairman should thank the guests for their attendance, good cheer and high spirits. A few reciprocal remarks, or a toast, may be made by one of the celebrants and a vote of thanks offered to the host, chairman, chef, piper, etc.

Auld Lang Syne

The traditional end to any Burns Night - indeed, an appropriate end to any evening spent among the company of friends - is the singing of this sentimental Scottish song. It always helps to have the correct lyrics printed out for the, by now, groggily satisfied celebrants.

1. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne! 2. We twa hae paidl'd in the burn, Frae morning sun till dine; But seas between us braid hae roar'd Sin' auld lang syne. For auld, &c. Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne. We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne. 3. And surely ye'll be your pint stowp! And surely I'll be mine! And we'll tak a cup o'kindness yet, For auld lang syne. For auld, &c.

4. We twa hae run about the braes, And pou'd the gowans fine; But we've wander'd mony a weary fit, Sin' auld lang syne. For auld, &c. 5. And there's a hand, my trusty fere! And gie's a hand o' thine! And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught, For auld lang syne. For auld, &c.