To A Louse

To a Louse
by Robert Burns

HA! whare ye gaun, ye crowlan ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gawze and lace;
Tho faith, I fear ye dine but sparely,
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepan, blastet wonner,
Detested, shunn’d, by saunt and sinner,
How daur 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;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi ither kindred, jumpin cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whare horn nor bane ne’er daur unsettle,
Your thick plantations.

Now haud ye there, ye’re out o sicht,
Below the fatt’rels, snug and ticht,
Na faith ye yet! ye’ll no be richt,
Till ye’ve got on it,
The vera tapmost, towrin hicht
O Miss’s bonnet.

My sooth! richt bauld ye set your nose oot,
As plump and gray as onie grozet:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I’d gie you sic a hearty dose o’t,
Wad dress your droddum!

I wad na been surpriz’d to spy
You on an auld wife’s flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
On ’s wylecoat;
But Miss’s fine Lunardi, fye!
How daur ye do ’t?

O Jenny dinna toss your heid,
And set your beauties aw abreid!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie’s makkin!
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dreid,
Are notice takkin!

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
Tae see oorsels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait wad lea us,
And ev’n Devotion!