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To Miss Ferrier, enclosing Elegy on Sir J. H. Blair

by Robert Burns, 1787

Nae heathen name shall I prefix,
  Frae Pindus or Parnassus;
Auld Reekie dings them a' to sticks,
  For rhyme-inspiring lasses.

Jove's tunefu' dochters three times three
  Made Homer deep their debtor;
But, gien the body half an e'e,
  Nine Ferriers wad done better!

Last day my mind was in a bog,
  Down George's Street I stoited;
A creeping cauld prosaic fog
  My very sense doited.

Do what I dought to set her free,
  My saul lay in the mire;
Ye turned a neuk—I saw your e'e—
  She took the wing like fire!

The mournfu' sang I here enclose,
  In gratitude I send you,
And pray, in rhyme as weel as prose,
  A' gude things may attend you!

Published in Poems and Songs of Robert Burns
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