Burns prefaced his celebration of the common man (specifically the Scottish agricultural labourer) with a verse, quoted yesterday, from Gray's Elegy.
But while Gray's was preoccupied with mortality Burns paints with wonderful humanity the family life of his cotter, concluding that "From Scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs."
Opening verses of THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT
November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;
The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating from the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn cotter frae his labor goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the muir, his course does hameward bend.
At length his lonely Cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlan, stacher thro'
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise and glee.
His wee-bit ingle, blinkan bonilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty Wifie's smile,
The lisping infant, prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labor and his toil.
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