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The Calf


Right, sir! your text I'll prove it true, Tho' heretics may laugh; For instance, there's yourself just now, God knows, an unco calf. And should some patron be so kind, As bless you wi' a kirk, I doubt na , sir but then we'll find, Ye're still as great a stirk. But , if the lover's raptur'd hour, Shall ever be your lot, Forbid it, ev'ry heavenly Power, You e'er should be a stot! Tho' when some kind connubial dear Your but-and-ben adorns, The like has been that you may wear A noble head of horns. And, in your lug, most reverend James, To hear you roar and rowt, Few men o' sense will doubt your claims To rank amang the nowt. And when ye're number'd wi' the dead, Below a grassy hillock, With justice they may mark your head - "Here lies a famous bullock!"

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Siobhan Redmond

About this work

This is a poem by Robert Burns. It was written in 1786 and is read here by Siobhan Redmond.

More about this poem

The poem was sent along with a letter to Burns's friend Robert Muir on 8th September 1786 which recounted the recent birth of his son and daughter. It was composed as a wager between Burns and Gavin Hamilton who believed he could not produce a poem on a subject within a given time.

The subject in question was a sermon delivered by the Rev. James Steven on 03 September on Malachi iv. 2: 'And ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall'.

Ralph Richard McLean

Themes for this poem

bawdrynature

Locations for this poem

Mauchline

Selected for 24 November

Sometimes irony really IS delicious. It was on November 24th that John Knox died and Billy Connolly was born. The fun-forbidding Calvinist and the irreverent comedian could be said to represent polar opposites in terms of Caledonian types. The sermons of the former are cancelled out by the stand-up routines of the latter while the culture of their native land tries to reconcile, or at least accommodate itself to, the mutually antagonistic aesthetic and moral outlooks of these influential birthday boys. John Knox passed away in 1572 and probably didn't die laughing. Billy Connolly made his existential entrance in 1942. Here's a funny poem about a sermon they could both perhaps enjoy...

Donny O'Rourke

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