| HA! wh'are ye gaun, ye crowlin' ferlie ! | crawling wonder |
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| Your impudence protects you sairly: | well | ||
| I canna say but ye strunt rarely, | strut | ||
| Owre gawze and lace; | over | ||
| Tho' faith ! I fear ye dine but sparely, | |||
| On sic a place. | such | ||
| Ye ugly, creepin', blastit wonner, | wonder | ||
| Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner, | |||
| How dare ye set your fit upon her, | |||
| Sae fine a Lady! | |||
| Gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner, | |||
| On some poor body. | |||
| Swith, in some beggar's haffet squattle; | swiftly | ||
| There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle, | scramble | ||
| Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle, | |||
| In shoals and nations; | |||
| Where horn nor bane ne'er dare unsettle, | |||
| Your thick plantations. | |||
| Now haud ye there, ye're out o' sight, | hold on | ||
| Below the fatt'rels, snug an' tight, | ribbon ends | ||
| Na faith ye yet! ye'll no be right, | |||
| Till ye've got on it, | |||
| The very tapmost tow'ring height | |||
| O' Miss's bonnet. | |||
| My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out, | bold | ||
| As plump and gray as onie grozet; | any gooseberry | ||
| O for some rank mercurial rozet, | resin | ||
| Or fell red smeddum, | insecticide | ||
| I'd gie you sic a hearty doze o't, | |||
| Wad dress your droddum! | would, backside | ||
| I wad na been surpris'd to spy | |||
| You on an auld wife's flannen toy; | flannel cap | ||
| Or aiblins some bit duddie boy, | perhaps, ragged | ||
| On's wyliecoat; | On his flannel vest | ||
| But Miss's fine Lunardi! fie! | bonnet | ||
| How daur ye do't ? | |||
| O Jenny dinna toss your head, | |||
| An' set your beauties a' abread! | abroad | ||
| Ye little ken what cursed speed | know | ||
| The blastie's makin'! | |||
| Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread | They are winking & pointing | ||
| Are notice takin'! | |||
| O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us | |||
| To see oursels as others see us ! | |||
| It wad frae mony a blunder free us | |||
| And foolish notion: | |||
| What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, | |||
| And ev'n Devotion! | |||
Finally, a poem about somebody getting cooties!
This poem is a satire on the human condition. Burns addresses a louse crawling on a lady's bonnet, but his real target is our pride & affectations. The rich may be snobbish and imagine that they do not share in the afflictions of the poor, but lice, like death, come to everybody. He claims to be surprised to see them on her bonnet--they should have been on some poor person.
The Lunardi bonnet was named for Vincenzo Lunardi, an Italian who worked at the embassy in London. In 1785, the year the poem was written, Lunardi flew over Scotland in a balloon. Fashionable ladies soon started wearing balloon-shaped bonnets.
Burns shows his belief in equality in this poem. Equality was
a popular belief in England & Scotland, as in the American colonies
that had broken away 10 years earlier. He also questions the value
of religion, especially religious sanctimony.