Adam Armour's Prayer
written in 1786
Adam Armour's Prayer - context Summary
Composed in 1786
This early 1786 poem finds Burns adopting a Scots-speaking, mock-prayer voice. The speaker—small, embattled, and partly comic—begs pity and protection after a local disgrace, then pronounces rough, often bawdy curses on named people associated with the trouble. Its tone mixes earthy humor, violent imagery, and communal grievance, giving a vivid picture of rural social life and vindictive folk talk. As an early composition written when Burns was about twenty-seven, it shows his ear for dialect, comic character, and coarse popular idiom rather than elevated lyricism.
Read Complete AnalysesGude pity me, because I'm little, For though I am an elf o' mettle, And can, like ony wabster's shuttle, Jink there or here; Yet, scarce as lang's a gude kail whittle, I'm unco queer. An' now thou kens our waefu' case; For Geordie's Jurr we're in disgrace, Because we've stang'd her through the place, And hurt her spleuchan, For which we darena show our face Within the clachan. And now we're dern'd in dens and hollows, And hunted as was William Wallace, Wi' Constables, those blackguard fallows, An' Sodgers baith; But gude preserve us frae the gallows, That shamefu' death! Auld grim black-bearded Geordie's sell; Oh, shake him o'er the mouth o' hell, There let him hing, and roar, and yell, Wi' hideous din, And if he offers to rebel, Then heave him in. When Death comes in wi' glimmering blink, An' tips auld druken Nanz the wink, May Satan gie her arse a clink Within his yet, An' fill her up wi' brimstone drink, Red, reeking, het. There's Jockie and the hav'rel Jenny, Some Devil seize them in a hurry, And waff them in th' infernal wherry Straught through the lake, And gie their hides a noble curry, Wi' oil of aik. As for the Jurr, poor worthless body, She's got mischief enough already, Wi' stanged hips, and buttocks bloody, She's suffer'd sair; But may she wintle in a woodie, If she whore mair.
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